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THE 

WAY TO HEAVEN 



BY 



EVANGELIST W. W. SMITH 




REV. W. W. SMITH 
1890 



THE 

WAY TO HEAVEN 



r^S 



By EVANGELIST W.'W. SMITH 



Copyright i9or 

REV. W. W. SMITH 

Roanoke, Va. 






[LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

APK 19 1907 

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PREFACE 



For nearly twenty years my attention has 
been especially directed to the Atonement. A 
large portion of my time has been spent on that 
subject. I have been asked by many of my friends 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast to have 
these sermons on the Atonement published. In 
some towns where I have illustrated this subject 
by a chart, it has caused such an interest that the 
people have follozved with excursion trains that 
cost hundreds of dollars to see it a second and 
third time. I write these sermons on this subject 
that Christian people may know when this short 
life is over that they will have an abundant en- 
trance into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ. 

W. W. Smith. 



CONTENTS 



i. God is Love 5 

2. I am the Way 13 

3. Law and Grace 23 

4. When I See the Blood 35 

J. New Creature in Christ . 46 

6. Love is the Whole of Religion 57 

7. Seek First the Kingdom of God 65 

8. All Good to the Christian 76 

9. Christ is Risen 87 

10. Sowing and Reaping 94 

11. Hell 103 

12. Heaven 114 



<5o& Is %ov>e> 



"God is Love." — I John iv, 8. Take the 
word love away from the Bible, and you take 
away its divine light. Sweep the essence of this 
word from the human race, and you would des- 
troy happiness as much as you would destroy 
light if you w T ere to hurl the sun from its heights 
sublime and strike its glories from the throne of 
time. The fountain of this word is in the heart of 
the great God, from which there is a river of love 
flowing out, washing the sin-stained souls of 
millions, making them whiter than snow. If we 
were to read the Bible from Genesis to Revela- 
tion, we would find on almost every page, God is, 
but nowhere that He was a God of love. Oh, how 
we would long to know what He is. We might 
imagine that we could see angels and archangels 
flying over the bright plains of Heaven on rapid 
wing, and thousands of saints about the great 
white throne, looking into the word of God in 
silent and solemn search to know what this God 
is. But, oh, we see the beautiful word love. 
"God is Love." Oh, blessed revelation, putting 
an end to all our fears and doubts. Glorious 



God Is Love 



pledge for our present, future and eternal happi- 
ness. This great God, this mighty God who 
created all things, who inhabited eternity long 
before one star revolved in its sphere, 
before an angel moved a wing, who was as per- 
fect before the birth of time as He will be when 
time shall be no more, as infinitely holy when He 
inhabited alone the solitude of immensity as He 
k now with the songs of angels and archangels 
sounding in His ears. 

It was love that inspired this great God to the 
creation of man, and to the redemption of the 
fallen race. It was love that triumphed over sin 
to give us glory. Love is the theme in heaven 
today of angels and saints, and will be forever. 
If we could ask all the angels and redeemed 
spirits, "What is God?" the answer would be, 
"Love." "God is Love." When He wishes to 
manifest His power, He divides the waves of the 
sea ; when He wishes to display His justice, He 
sends a deluge over the whole earth; when He 
wishes to manifest His glory, He speaks again, 
and away yonder in space a world flies into ex- 
istence, and goes revolving in its sphere. But 
when He wishes to manifest His love, which is 
the greatest of all, He sends His Son from the 
throne of glory, where He is worshiped by 



God Is L © y e 



angels and archangels, to die on the cross for a 
lost world. I sometimes think, when standing on 
some high mountain peak, looking off on the 
beautiful world, that we have but to open our 
eyes to see that God is a God of love. Away in 
the distance we see verdant hills, shady groves, 
sparkling streams, meandering rivers and purple 
mountains, all arrayed in their splendor like the 
robes of morning, when curling mists crown the 
mountain top, and sapphire clouds build a throne 
for the sun. Far away in the distance snow- 
capped mountain peaks shining like great masses 
of silver in the heavens, which seem to kiss the 
creator and builder of all things. The blue sky 
bending over us like God in love over all things. 
Here and there a fleecy cloud hovering over the 
heavens as if riding on angels' wings. The gen- 
tle breeze playing over hill and dale as if to sip 
the sweet odor from the flowers, and bear the 
songs of birds away on their bosom to the very 
gates of heaven, and we think, ah, surely the 
creator of this world must be a God of love, but 
we have seen the signs of wrath mingled and 
blended with the beauties of nature. We have 
seen the sun that adorns the chamber of the east, 
with his rosy rays of light, turn himself into a 
consuming fire, scorching and burning the green 



8 GodlsLove 

earth. The far-away, glittering mountain peak 
seems to be the resting place of angels, yet at 
times its fiery heart begins to throb and beat, 
and hurl forth lavic flames of fire, and bury cities 
at its base. The gentle breeze turns itself into 
a mighty storm, and drives vessels upon some 
rocky shore, and then we can hear the waves 
mourning over the dead. How true, as one writer 
has said, "'This earth is the middle spot between 
heaven and hell." The glory of heaven and the 
midnight shades of hell have passed over the 
same spots of earth. 

The place of prayer is separated only by a 
single dwelling from the hell of the gambler. 
Truth and falsehood walk side by side through 
our streets. Joy and agony look out at the same 
window. Hope and despair dwell under the same 
roof. The sounds of the lute and the viol have 
scarcely died away before the groans of dying 
come following after. Take the wings of light 
and love and girdle the world, and you will find 
no path so bright and lovely, filled with singing 
birds and blooming flowers that the cloud of 
mourning will not cast its shadow. No height so 
lofty and serene that will not be beaten by storms 
and tempests. No home so cheerful and happy 
that death will not find its victim. Look yonder 



God Is Love 



at that happy home on the hillside, hear that little 
girl singing so sweetly far away upon the morn- 
ing air, as the song is borne it thrills the hearts 
of all with joy and gladness; then look again 
at the same home at midnight, see the father and 
mother standing by the bedside of the same little 
girl, who is now dying. The next morning she is 
cold in death, ready for the grave, and the mother 
thinks, "Can this be a God of love?" and then 
she says, "Oh, yes, God kissed her soul away to 
the land where she will sing sweeter, and be 
much happier than in our earthly home." 

The greatest love of which I wish to speak is 
that in God giving His Son to die for the world. 
He sends Him in the form of sinful man, and in 
the likeness of sinful flesh. What humiliation 
for the Son and what wonderful condescension 
for the Father who gave Him ! Oh ! what love 
is that which conceived the idea of bringing the 
Son of God in contact with our misery, that we 
through His death and suffering might live for- 
ever. See how the world treated the one who 
came to save them ; they dragged Him in trial 
from one hall to another, and all night yelling 
for His blood. Then see them drag Him to Cal- 
vary, and nail Him to the cruel cross, and hear 
Him groan beneath our sins, until at last He 



God Is Love 



cries, "It is finished," and when He said, "It is 
finished," we might imagine the angels shouted 
through the fields of the dead, "finished," until 
the saints leaped from their graves with joy. 
Then away down to the mouth of hell they 
shouted, "It is finished," till demons and devils 
trembled. Then up, up, through the ethereal 
blue, they shouted, far away toward the home of 
the saints, passing the stars they shouted, "It is 
finished." Passing through the pearly gates, 
along the gold-paved streets, and through the 
shining mansions, and over the crystal sea, and 
bright plains of eternal glory, they shout, "It is 
finished." This shall be the theme of the re- 
deemed spirits about the great white throne, say- 
ing, "It is finished ; glory, honor, and power be 
unto the Lamb forever." 

What love God had in giving His Son to die 
for this lost world, no human language can ex- 
press. See what love one man may have for 
another. As I once read of a rich nobleman, 
who, with his wife and little girl, were driving 
across the plains of Russia to a certain station, 
and as they came to a small village about dark, 
and yet a long distance to make across the frozen 
plains, they stopped and asked the proprietor of 
a hotel for a pair of fresh horses to hitch in front 



God Is Lore 



of his, so as to make the station a little while 
after dark. The proprietor said there was danger 
in crossing the plains after dark, as they might 
be destroyed by wolves, but the nobleman said, 
"Bring on the horses." They were brought and 
hitched in front, then said he, "Drive as rapidly 
as you can." As they had gone some distance 
over the plains in the moonlight, the little daugh- 
ter said : "Papa, what is that sound I hear in the 
distance that sounds like wolves?" He listened 
and said, "Only the sighing of the winds through 
the leafless forest." On they went, but in a little 
while she became restless again, and said, "Papa, 
I do hear the sound of wolves in the distance." 
He listened again, and far back in the still, cold, 
frosty night air, he heard a sound, he knew too 
well what it meant. There was a young man that 
sat in the carriage by the driver, whom he had 
reared up in his own home ; he said to the young 
man, "You get your revolver ready, and I'll get 
mine." Soon the wolves were all about the car- 
riage, howling for their blood. They fired and 
two wolves fell dead ; he said, "Get your revolver 
ready again, they will come more furiously than 
ever when they get the taste of blood." Soon 
the wolves overtook them again, they fired and 
two more wolves fell dead, then their ammuni- 



God Is Love 



tion was gone. Soon they heard the howl of the 
wolves again. Then said the rich nobleman, 
"Cut one of the horses loose." They ran it into 
the forest, killed it, and sucked its blood; in a 
little while they came again; another horse was 
cut loose, and they took its life. Then said the 
nobleman, "Drive as rapidly as you can." Soon 
they heard the wolves coming, the young man 
that sat by the driver turned and said to the 
nobleman and his wife and little girl: "I love 
you, and I only have one request to ask of you, 
that is, when I am dead, look after my wife and 
little child," then before the nobleman could pre- 
vent, he leaped from the carriage among the 
wolves, and soon they took his life. Then driv- 
ing rapidly they reached the station before the 
wolves came again. They went back the next 
day with a coffin and found only the hair and 
bones of the young man, and as they gathered 
them up, and putting them in the coffin they said : 
"Didn't he love us? he died to save us." After 
he was buried they reared a great monument over 
his grave, and as the summers came and went, 
they would visit his grave, and stand with tears 
in their eyes and say, "Didn't he love us? he 
died to save us." So we should look to the cross, 
with tears in our eyes, and say, "Oh, didn't He 
love us, didn't He love us ? He died to save us." 



II Hm tbe UCia^ 



"Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the 
truth and the life: no man cometh unto the 
Father but by Me." — John xiv, 6. 

When I was in California in 1894, a man said 
to me one day, "No ship ever came into San Fran- 
cisco but what came through the Golden Gate." 
So I said, "Yes, and no ship ever went to heaven 
but what went through the Cross of Calvary." 
As Talmage said once in New York that he had 
a dream one night and saw thousands come to 
the gate of heaven for entrance and the angel at 
the gate said, "From whence came you?" They 
said, "We are Methodists." The angel said, "Can 
not enter here." Then there came another troop 
and the angel asked them from whence they 
came, and they said, "We are Presbyterians." 
The angel said, "Can not enter here." Then came 
still another troop toward the gate; the angel 
asked them the same thing, and they said, "We 
are Baptists." But the angel also said to them, 
"Ye can not enter here." So the angel threw the 
gate shut in the face of all the troops that came 
saying we belong to some denomination or creed. 



14 I Am the Way 

Then the angel looked away out in the distance 
toward the dark, sin-cursed earth and saw a 
white troop coming that no man could number, 
greater than the sands of the sea ; as they came 
near the gate, the angel asked them from whence 
they came. They said, "We came from that sin- 
ful world back yonder through the blood of the 
Son of God." Then said the angel, "This is 
your home. ,, As the gate swung wide open, 
they entered with shouts, "Glory and honor be 
unto the Father and Son for .the blood that was 
shed on the cross." Through the blood is the 
only way to heaven. 

No one will ever enter by any other road. 
The human race for thousands of years have tried 
all kinds of ways that the mind could conceive, 
but find no way to get to heaven, only the way 
that Christ made in His death on the cross, 
called in Hebrews a new and living way which 
He hath consecrated for us through the veil, 
that is to say, His flesh. No one will ever take 
this way as long as they have a way of their own. 
The man to come to Christ must first see himself 
dead to all good acts and to all his ways. As 
long as he thinks he can do something to merit 
salvation he does not yet see himself dead in sin. 
The Lord stayed away until Lazarus was dead, 



IAmtheWay 15 

not sick or almost dead, but dead, before He 
could raise him from the dead. So the sinner 
must first see himself dead to all good deeds, 
and dead in sin before Christ can raise him to 
eternal life. Just like the leper that was put 
outside of the city that continued to cry all the 
time, "Unclean, unclean." If you had gone by 
the city at midnight, heard him cry, "Unclean," 
or any time in the day, still the same cry, "Un- 
clean." So he kept this cry up night and day 
all the time until he was one solid scab from the 
top of his head to the sole of his feet; not a 
sound speck of flesh anywhere about his body. 

Like in the fourteenth chapter of Leviticus: 
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, This 
shall be the law of the leper in the day of his 
cleansing. He shall be brought unto the priest; 
And the priest shall go forth out of the camp; 
and the priest shall look, and, behold, if the 
plague of leprosy be healed in the leper; Then 
shall the priest command to take for him that is 
to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and 
cedar wood, and scarlet and hyssop; And the 
priest shall command that one of the birds be 
killed in an earthen vessel over running water; 
As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the 
cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and 



16 IAmtheWay 

shall dip them and the living bird in the blood 
of the one that was killed over the running water ; 
And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be 
cleansed from leprosy seven times, and shall 
pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird 
loose into the open field." So if you had been 
living at that time, as you would have seen the 
living bird, with its pinions red with blood, light 
in a tree in your yard, you would have said, 
"Look at that bird yonder, a man has been healed 
from leprosy somewhere today." As this bird 
went, in its flight, everywhere, telling a man had 
been healed from leprosy. These two birds rep- 
resent the two types of the one Christ. The 
dying bird represents the dying Christ for our 
sins on the cross. The living bird, with blood 
on its wings, the risen Christ who sits at the 
right hand of the Father, making intercession 
for the children of God. "Who was delivered 
for our offences and raised again for our justifi- 
cation." Romans iv, 25. 

So it is alone through the merits of what 
Christ did on the cross that the Father will wel- 
come us into the City of the New Jerusalem. To 
illustrate the death of Christ: During our late 
war between the North and South, there was a 
lawyer in the South who had spent much of his 



I Am the Way 17 

means and time in taking care of the Southern 
soldiers. So one morning before going to his 
office, he said to his wife he could not spend any 
more money nor time in the support of the poor 
soldiers. As he went that morning to his office, 
no sooner had he entered when a poor, ragged 
soldier boy came knocking at his door, the law- 
yer cried out, "Get away from my office, I can 
lose no time nor money with you, I have already 
lost too much money with you poor soldiers/' 
But the poor ragged boy seemed to pay no atten- 
tion to what he said, but kept on coming into the 
office. As he came near the lawyer, he said to 
him, "Here is a letter from your son, who died 
on the battle-field, and I was by his side when 
dying, and this is the last message from your 
son, Charley." As the father took the letter and 
began to read it, it read something like this : 
"Dear father, when you receive this message 
your son Charley will be buried in some unknown 
grave on the battle-field, but this young man 
who brings this note waited on me kindly until 
the last and now, dear father, for my sake, you 
and mother take him and treat him as you did 
your own son, Charley.' ' The lawyer then said 
to the poor boy, "Sit here in this chair till I 
order a carriage." In a few minutes a carriage 



18 I Am the Way 

was at the office. The lawyer and the young 
man got in, and as they drove up to the house 
the lawyer called to his wife and said, "Here is 
the boy that waited on Charley when he was dy- 
ing, and he has a letter from Charley telling us 
to take this poor, ragged soldier boy and treat 
him as we did our own son, and do it for his 
sake." So the mother cried out, "Give him 
Charley's room, his clothes and his place at the 
table." Now, they did not do that for anything 
good they saw in the poor soldier boy, but for the 
love they had for their own dear boy that was 
dead. 

Now, God will receive us into heaven for 
the sake of His Son's death on the cross and not 
for anything we have done or ever can do. All 
the merit in going to heaven is in the death of 
Christ. It is said that Napoleon had once passed 
the sentence of death on one of his soldiers. 
And as he passed through a hall he saw a girl in 
front of him on her knees with long hair flowing 
down her back, with eyes turned toward heaven, 
crying out, "Napoleon, pardon, oh ! dear sir, par- 
don." Napoleon said, "Pardon whom?" She 
said, "My father ;" he said "Your father is guilty 
and must die." The girl said, "I am not here 
to plead for justice, I knew he would have to 



I Am the Way 19 

die, but only for pardon for my guilty father." 
Now, we do not come to plead justice for the 
remission of sins, but only as guilty men for 
pardon. Deliverance must come alone through 
Jesus Christ. The angels in heaven could look 
on and pity us but could neither save us nor help 
us. Jesus is the only one that can do anything 
for our souls' salvation; and, even He could do 
nothing until He consented to die for us. But 
He was willing to do this. He became a man. 
He suffered death upon the cross for us. On 
the cross He made for us a life-boat by which 
we can sail to heaven. He keeps this life-boat 
sailing round the old wrecked world all the time, 
and He tells His servants to keep calling to 
those who are perishing to come on board the 
life-boat and be saved. This boat never can be 
too full. It never can be sunk. It is able to save 
unto the uttermost all who will get into it in the 
right way. This is the deliverance which Jesus 
brings to a lost world. Now, when we receive 
Christ we are in the way to heaven, and He not 
only puts us in the way but keeps us safely in 
the way. For example: Some years ago there 
was a good minister in England whose name was 
John Newton. He had a dream once which illus- 
trates God's keeping power as well as His saving 



I Am the Way 



power. In his dream Mr. Newton thought he 
was on board a ship which was laying at anchor 
in the Bay of Naples, and he was leaning over the 
side of the vessel looking at the city which lay 
off in the distance with Mount Vesuvius behind 
it, when a beautiful angel came to him and gave 
him a gold ring. He told him to take great care 
of that ring and never to part with it on any 
account. He said that if he kept it safe he would 
always be happy and when he died it would take 
him to heaven. Mr. Newton then promised the 
angel that he would never part with the ring as 
long as he lived. Then the angel left him. Soon 
after he was gone another person came up to him, 
looking very different from the angel, he began 
conversation with Mr. Newton, by and by he 
saw the ring, which the angel had given him, 
upon his finger. Then he asked some questions 
about it. Mr. Newton told him how the ring 
was given to him and how his happiness and sal- 
vation depended on his keeping that ring, and 
that it would make him happy in this world and 
take him to heaven at last. The stranger then 
laughed at him. Then told him what a foolish 
thing it was to think that keeping that ring would 
make him happy and at last take him to heaven. 
He went on talking in this way and said so much 



IAmtheWay 21 

about it that at last Mr. Newton began to feel 
ashamed of himself, and finally, at the stranger's 
suggestion, he actually took the ring from his 
finger and dropped it into the sea. He had no 
sooner done so than his tempter turned and re- 
proached him for his folly. He told him that in 
throwing away that ring he had thrown away his 
happiness and lost his soul. Poor Mr. Newton 
was in great distress. Then he dreamed that his 
angel friend came back and plunged into the 
water just where the ring had been dropped, up 
he came with the ring in his hand. Mr. Newton 
shouted for joy when he saw the ring and eagerly 
reached out his hand to take it again, but the 
angel said, "No, I can not trust it to you any 
more, if I shall you might lose it again. I shall 
keep it for you and then it will be safe." So Mr. 
Newton saw when he awoke that the angel repre- 
sented Christ, the tempter, satan, and the ring, 
his salvation. 

So Jesus must keep us as well as save us. 
As Paul said, "For I know whom I have believed, 
and am persuaded that He is able to keep that 
which I have committed unto Him against that 
day." So Christ will have all the glory in our 
salvation. "But God forbid that I should glory- 
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by 



22 I Am the Way 

whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto 
the world." A dying warrior requested that the 
flag under which he had fought and conquered 
might be placed beneath his head for a pillow 
as life was ebbing away. So the believer, when 
paleness dims his eye and coldness creeps over 
his limbs, counts it his highest comfort to know 
he has fought the good fight of faith under the 
blood-stained banner of the cross, and can now 
say when dying, "No fear of death, victory, vic- 
tory, through the blood of the Lamb." 



Xaw an& (Brace* 



"Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall 
no flesh be justified in His sight ; for by the law 
is the knowledge of sin." Romans iii, 20. 

The law does not make sin, but reveals to 
man his lost condition. As Paul said, "I had 
not known sin but by the law, for I had not 
known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt 
not covet." Paul was just as sinful before the 
law had shown him his state as afterwards, but 
he did not have a knowledge of his lost condi- 
tion. Just like a man goes into a strange village 
after night, next morning looks out of his win- 
dow and sees verdant hills, beautiful valleys, 
sparkling streams, and far off in the distance the 
blue mountains towering away into the heavens. 
All of this beautiful scenery was lying around 
the village in the night as well as in the day, but 
the stranger had no knowledge of it until the 
sunlight revealed it. As Paul said, "For I was 
alive without the law once, but when the com- 
mandment came, sin revived and I died." That 
is by the law Paul saw his danger. Just like a 
man in a cave where it is so dark he can not see 



24 Law and Grace 

his hand before him, he then has no knowledge of 
any danger, but all at once, suppose the sunlight 
should flash down through a crevice in the cave 
and he sees a wild beast crouched near, ready to 
leap upon him, and on the other side a serpent 
just ready to strike him, in this darkness he was 
in danger but did not know it. Now the sunlight 
did not make the beast nor the serpent, but only 
revealed his danger. 

So the law does not make sin but only re- 
veals to man his sins. We can never stand before 
God justified by the law, and if we are to be 
justified it must be by grace, and if we are not 
justified we are not saved. "For the law was 
given by Moses, but grace and truth came by 
Jesus Christ." God did not intend that man 
should get to heaven by keeping the law, but 
through the blood of Christ. It takes the blood 
to save the best man in the world as well as the 
vilest, for the Bible teaches, "Whosoever shall 
keep the whole law and yet ofifend in one point 
is guilty of all." See, this law has ten command- 
ments, just like a watch with ten wheels, if one 
is broken the watch will not run, so if you break 
one commandment you are guilty of the whole. 
Suppose you were hanging by a chain over a 
precipice, that chain consists of ten links, and if 



Law and Grace 25 

some one were to take a hammer and strike a 
blow and break one link, you would go to the 
bottom just the same as if all the links had broken 
at once. Then if you break one commandment 
you are just as much condemned as if you had 
broken them all. So if we were to live in the 
world fifty years and have but one evil thought, 
or speak one unkind word, that would be sin, and 
sin is the transgression of the law and under the 
law we would all have to die and go to helL "For 
all have sinned and come short of the glory of 
God." There has never been a man nor a 
woman on earth but what the law could bring a 
charge against them for sin except Christ. God 
did not give the law and ten commandments to 
make us so good that He could take us to heaven, 
but to prove to us that we were so bad that our 
only way to heaven was to accept His salvation. 
"But when the fulness of time was come, God 
sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made 
under the law, to redeem them that were under 
the law, that we might receive the adoption of 
sons." Now, when we believe on Christ we are 
dead to the law and its charges forever. "For 
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to 
every one that believeth ; wherefore, my beloved 
brethren, ye are become dead also to the law by 



26 Law and Grace 

the body of Christ that ye should be married to 
another, even to Him who is raised from the 
dead that we should bring forth fruit unto God." 
When a guilty murderer is tried by the law 
and is hanged, he is then dead to that law for- 
ever, and the law is dead with its charges to him 
forever. He paid the penalty, the law said hang 
him. So the law spent its force on him and now 
he is dead and gone into a spiritual world where 
the law can never come. Now, we would not 
talk about the dead man in a spiritual world 
taking the law of the state that hanged him as 
a rule by which to live. Now, when we believe 
on Christ, we are dead to the law and its charges 
forever, and it is dead to us, because Christ, our 
sin-bearer, took all of the charges of the law on 
Himself, and set us free. So when we cross the 
blood line we get into a spiritual world, where 
the law can never come. Now, we can look back 
to the cross and say, "Bless God, all paid there 
by the blood of Christ ; no more sin laid to our 
charge, past, present, and future, all gone for- 
ever." "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that 
heareth My word and believeth on Him that sent 
Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into 
condemnation; but is passed from death unto 
life. By the which will we are sanctified through 



Law and Grace 



the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for 
all." What a contrast between law and grace. 
When the law was given to condemn this world, 
it was amid lightning and thundering, and the 
mountain smoking and not so much as a beast 
could come near the mountain without death. 
But when Christ came to this world to save men 
from sin, there was seen a bright star in the 
eastern sky and a light shown over the fields 
where the shepherds kept their flocks, and sud- 
denly there was with the angel a multitude of 
the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace 
and good will toward men, for unto you is born 
this day in the City of David a Saviour, which is 
Christ the Lord." Also the first preaching of the 
law about three thousand souls were slain. When 
grace was preached about three thousand souls 
were brought to spiritual life. Some one may 
say, "How are we going to get Abraham, David, 
and Peter to heaven?" When the Bible says, 
"And ye know that no murderer hath eternal 
life abiding in him, and all liars shall have their 
part in the lake which burnetii with fire and 
brimstone, which is the second death." 

Abraham and Peter went to heaven, pardoned 
liars, and David, a pardoned murderer, just as 



28 Law and Grace 

if he had committed that sin before he had 
trusted the Lord. That was why Nathan said 
to David, "The Lord also hath put away thy sin, 
thou shalt not die/' Nathan understood the atone- 
ment ; he knew that when David looked forward 
to the coming of Christ and trusted Him, that his 
sins were all paid for by the blood of the Lord, 
and that God could not be a just God and accept 
the blood of His Son in payment for David's 
sins and then require David to make settlement 
for which his Lord had paid. That would not be 
just any more than for a man to make another 
pay a debt twice. "Blessed is the man to whom 
the Lord will not impute sin." Romans iv, 8. 
All true believers stand before God in Christ 
with all their sins covered, just as if they had 
never committed a sin in their lives. The be- 
liever can say, "I have no sin against me in God's 
book. If I were to turn over God's eternal book 
I should see every debt of mine receipted and 
canceled." 



'Here's pardon for transgressions past, 
It matters not how black their cast, 

And O my soul with wonder view, 
For sins to come here's pardon too; 

Fully discharged by Christ I am 

From Christ's tremendous curse and blame. 



Law and Grace 29 

"Complete atonement thou hast made, 

And to its utmost farthing paid, 
What e'er they people owed, 

How, then, can wrath on me take place 
Now standing in God's righteousness, 

And sprinkled with His blood. 

"Since He hath my discharge procured; 

And freely in my place endured, 
The whole of wrath divine, 

Payment, God will not twice demand. 
First at my bleeding assurity's hand 

And then at mine." 

When we believe on Christ what becomes of 
our sins? Let the Bible with a few verses 
answer this question : "As far as the east is from 
the west, so far hath He removed our transgres- 
sions from us." Psalm ciii, 12. Who can 
ever find out how far the east is from the west? 
"Behold, for peace I had great bitterness, but 
thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from 
the pit of corruption ; for thou hast cast all my 
sins behind thy back." Isaiah xxxviii, 17. Who 
knows where the back of God is to be found? 
"He will turn again; He will have compassion 
upon us ; He will subdue our iniquities ; and 
Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths 
of the sea." Micah vii, 19. So you must go to 
the depth of the sea to find your sins. See in the 



30 Law and Grace 

New Testament : "And by Him, all that believe 
are justified from all things, from which ye could 
not be justified by the law of Moses." Acts 
xiii, 39. Those in heaven can not be any more 
than justified from all things. "And their sins 
and iniquities will I remember no more." 
Hebrews x, 17. Bless God, in time nor in eter- 
nity, no sin will ever come up against the be- 
liever. Now, to illustrate this fact, suppose two 
men, A and B, owe some merchant five hundred 
dollars each, and at some time both become par- 
alyzed and are not able to work, and are worth 
nothing, not able to pay a cent of their debt; 
just like the unsaved man, he is poor, blind, and 
naked, nothing good in him, not able to put away 
the least sin. Now, some rich man, say Mr. 
Brown, of New York, comes to visit this mer^ 
chant, and the merchant tells Mr. Brown about 
these two poor men who have been paralyzed 
and are not able to pay this just debt nor to take 
care of their families. Mr. Brown was touched 
with sympathy for these men. Yet they never 
did anything for him, just as we never did any- 
thing for Christ. Mr. Brown then said to the 
merchant, "I will pay the debt, so they can die 
honest, and all they will have to do is just to 
receive the receipt." So he deposited five hun- 



Law and Grace 



dred dollars for each of the men, but that would 
only pay off the past debt and leave the poor 
men to die in poverty, but he then puts in the 
safe of the merchant five thousand dollars for 
each of the poor men, which will be enough to 
supply their wants till death. In a few days 
after the money has been deposited to pay their 
debts, one of these poor men, say A, comes into 
the store, the merchant says, "I have good news 
for you/' "What good news?" says the poor 
man. "Well," says the merchant, "Mr. Brown, 
of New York came here the other day and I told 
him about what you and Mr. B owed me and how 
poor you were and could not pay the debt, and 
my dear friend, Mr. Brown left the money here 
to pay what you owed me, and that is not the 
best, he left five thousand dollars in my safe for 
you and your family, so I will give you the re- 
ceipt and your debt is paid." The poor, par- 
alyzed man gets up and whirls and goes out mut- 
tering and swearing and saying, "I am no old 
tramp that I am to have a man pay my debts in 
that way. I will pay my own debts." Now, this 
man is like the man who says he is going to 
heaven by his morality and good deeds, of such 
Jesus calls thieves and robbers. See, the other 
poor man, B, comes into the store and sits down, 



32 Law and Grace 

the merchant sees him shedding tears and then 
he says to B, "What is your trouble?" "Well, 
last night I woke up and heard my little children 
crying for bread and we had nothing to eat, and 
I said to my wife, This will kill me to hear this 
cry from my dear children and we have nothing 
to eat and owe five hundred dollars and I am 
not able to pay one cent of the debt. The debt 
is just, so when I am dead and buried people 
will pass my grave and say there is a dishonest 
man.' All this will kill me, I wanted to take 
care of my family and pay my debts and die an 
honest man, but now it is not in my power." 
The merchant tells him he has good news for 
him. "No," says the man, "I don't think any 
good news for a poor, paralyzed man like my- 
self." "Yes," the merchant tells him of Mr. 
Brown, who came from New York and left 
five hundred dollars in his hands to pay the five 
hundred that he owed him and then he deposited 
five thousand in his safe to supply him and his 
family until death. At first the poor man can 
not believe it, the news is too good, but the mer- 
chant takes him to his safe and shows him the 
money. Then the poor man says, "Thank God, 
I can die honest and take care of my family. 
I will love and praise the man until my dying 



Law and Grace 33 

day for paying my debt and leaving me this 
money so I will not have to buy on credit. Let 
me get home and tell my wife." See the man 
running up the street and over the hill in sight 
of his cabin, shouting as he runs, his wife hears 
the shouting, she comes out to meet him, saying, 
"Poor husband has lost his mind. Just as I 
expected with all these troubles. " "No, wife, 
not crazy, a man from New York paid our debt 
and left us five thousand dollars to clothe and 
feed us while we live." Then the wife begins to 
shout with joy and praising the man, saying, 
"The best man we ever heard of in our life. Oh, 
we will love him until our dying day with all 
our heart." Now, that is just w T hat the Lord 
Jesus Christ will do when we take Him as our 
Saviour. He will put all our past sins away 
and settle for all the future, so we can say as 
Paul, "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will 
not impute sin." Like John also, "Beloved, now 
are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear 
what we shall be, but we know that when He 
shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall 
see Him as He is." Faith in God's word will 
take away all the clouds between this earth and 
heaven. Like the little boy when dying, and the 
father stood by the bed, weeping, and the little 



34 Law and Grace 

son said, "Father, why are you weeping?" He 
said, "Son, you are dying." "Oh! father," said 
the little boy, "don't weep, if I am dying then to- 
night I will be in heaven and be so happy with 
Jesus." Now, if we have been redeemed with 
the precious blood of Christ, we will spend a 
sweet eternitv in heaven. 




REV. W. W. SMITH 
1907 



TKHben H See tbe 3Bloot>, 



''And the blood shall be to you for a token 
upon the houses where ye are; and when I see 
the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague 
shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I 
smite the land of Egypt." Exodus xii, 13. 

Now, to illustrate this subject, let us imagine 
ourselves away back yonder on the other side of 
the Cross of Calvary, down in Egypt, instead of 
being here in 1907 in America, and this to be 
the night of Egyptian Judgment. We have gone 
down into Egypt on an excursion and we get 
there just about sundown, and go to the boarding 
houses and hotels for supper; as we are eating 
we hear from the conversation of the people that 
there is great excitement of some kind in the 
camp, and we ask what is the trouble. The peo- 
ple tell us such trouble as has never been in 
Egypt before, that tonight is the night of Egyp- 
tian Judgment, and the first-born in many homes 
will die. So after supper we all go out for a 
walk, as we come to the first tent we see blood 
on the door-post, and you know blood causes 
feelings of awe and alarm as we think the life 
of something has been taken. 



36 When I See the Blood 

As I was preaching in St. Louis some years 
ago, walking the streets one day, I saw a man 
come out of a saloon, just as he came out on the 
street he fell and the blood ran from his mouth 
and in a little time he was dead. As the people 
came rushing along the pavement and saw they 
were stepping into blood, they would stop and 
step back as they looked at the blood, thinking- 
some one's life had flowed out there. So we 
go into this tent in Egypt, where the blood is 
on the door-post, as we enter we find the parents 
somewhat in fear and dread of something awful. 
We ask them w T hat is the trouble, and they tell 
us many mothers are going to lose their first- 
born in Egypt tonight. We then ask them if 
there is no remedy to prevent the death of their 
children. They tell us, "Yes, did you see the 
blood ?" and they tell us that God told them to 
put the blood of a lamb on the door-post and as 
He went by at midnight He would pass over their 
home and the first-born would not die. "If this 
be true, then why are you troubled about your 
first-born dying ?" "Well," they tell us, "when 
we think of the Word of God and the blood, we 
have no doubts or fears, but when we think of 
our lives and the w r ay we have lived we then get 
into doubts about our child living." So we do 



When I See the Blood 



37 



not like gloomy people, filled with fears and 
doubts that make God a liar, and we leave the 
first tent and go to the second. Oh ! how differ- 
ent as we enter this tent. We see the blood on 
the door just as we saw on the first tent, but see 
how happy the people are in this tent. They have 
their loins girded for the journey and are eating 
on the roasted lamb, talking and laughing as if 
they had never known or heard of troubles, or 
even death. We ask, "Why are you so happy in 
here when this is the night of Egyptian Judg- 
ment, when the first-born will be left dead at 
midnight in many homes ?" "Ah I" they say, "no 
one will die here ; did you see the blood on the 
door as you came in the tent ? and we have God's 
word that no one will die here. This is the best 
night we have ever had in Egypt. Our fathers 
nor grandfathers never heard any such good 
news. We will start tonight to the land that 
flows with milk and honey, and tomorrow in our 
march, we will look back and see the smoke ris- 
ing from the old brick-kilns and then we will 
say farewell to Egyptian slavery forever. Now, 
you see, we are very happy." We now go to the 
third tent, as we enter we see no blood on the 
door-post, yet the people are happy there, but 
from another cause. We ask where is the blood. 



38 When I See the Blood 

as we see none. And they tell us that the people 
in the tents we were in are old cranks, trying to 
frighten the people, that there will be no trouble 
in the land such as they were looking for, and 
they are just as safe as they are with the blood on 
their doors. 

Now, this last tent represents the class of peo- 
ple for whom Jesus died, but are happy in their 
sins and have never accepted the blood of Christ. 
So they must go to hell in their love of sin. The 
first tent represents those who have been re- 
deemed by the blood and are just as safe and cer- 
tain of heaven as in the second, but still filled, at 
times, with fears and doubts and unhappy be- 
cause they look at their own lives instead of 
believing what God has said in the Bible about 
the death of His Son. The second tent repre- 
sents the class of God's people who have been 
born again and so believe God's word as never 
to doubt what Christ did for them on the cross. 
Now, in the first tent the first-born is just as 
safe, if they do have doubts, as in the second 
tent where they have no doubts, but they are not 
so happy nor useful in God's service. It was 
nothing but the blood that kept the first-born 
from dying. It was not the blood baptism, 
prayers, and faithfulness in good deeds that made 



When I See the Blood 39 

them safe, but only the blood. The Word of 
God gave them a knowledge of the value of the 
blood. From the word of God they knew the 
first-born could not die, so they had no need for 
doubts. 

Now it is only the blood that makes us safe 
and certain of heaven, and not the blood and 
our good acts in life. The Bible says, "The blood 
of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all 
sin. ,, 

If nothing but the blood of Christ puts away 
sin, and one soul, redeemed by that blood goes 
down to hell then the whole world will go there, 
but thank God, no soul ever went there that had 
been made white in the blood of the Lamb. The 
poorest child of God is just as certain of heaven 
as the best Christian that ever lived, for he has 
the blood of Christ and that is all the best Chris- 
tian has to take him to heaven. But the child 
of God who lives such a poor Christian life is 
not as happy nor as useful as the one who never 
doubts the Word about' his home in the better 
world. God will not put His children in hell 
for doubting His word, but will chasten them 
as a loving father would his child. 

"If his children forsake my law and walk 
not in my judgments ; If they break my statutes, 



40 When I See the Blood 

and keep not my commandments ; Then will I 
visit their transgression with the rod, and their 
iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my loving- 
kindness will I not utterly take from him, noj 
suffer my faithfulness to fail/' Psalms 89. 

So when we have a knowledge of what Christ 
has done for us from His Word, it ought to take 
away all doubts. "God so loved the world that 
He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever 
believeth on Him shall not perish." What is 
faith? It is giving credit to the Word of God. 
To make this plain, take some little girl, twelve 
or thirteen years old, whose parents have been 
good and kind to the child, and they have done 
everything they could for the good and happiness 
of their daughter. So one night, as this child 
goes to retire, she says to her parents, "If I die 
tonight do not throw my body out on the street 
and let the dogs eat my flesh." Then the mother 
says, "Daughter, why do you talk that way? Do 
you not know if you were dead we would bury 
you as nicely as we could, and then be so sad 
that our sw T eet little girl was gone and we could 
no more hear you singing your sweet songs as 
you ran through the hall and up and down the 
stairway in our home. Oh, how dark home 
would be without our daughter." And yet the 



When I See the Blood 



41 



child would start up the stairway and repeat, "I 
am afraid you will throw me out on the street if 
I die.'' How wicked that would be in the daugh- 
ter to look that good father and mother in the 
face as the tears run down the cheeks of the par- 
ents and doubt their w T ord. Ah, how wicked, but 
how much more wicked for us to look to the 
cross and see Christ dying for us and yet doubt 
His word. The parents had never suffered for the 
child as He suffered for us. Look at the treat- 
ment which Jesus received from those whom He 
came to save. They called Him hard names ; 
they told falsehoods about Him ; they said He 
was a glutton and a drunkard, and even that He 
had a devil. They drove Him out of their cities ; 
they took Him up as if He had been a thief and 
a robber ; they bound Him and mocked Him ; 
they put a purple robe and a crown of thorns 
upon Him; they smote Him with the palms of 
their hands ; they stripped Him of His clothes ; 
they tore His blessed body with cruel scourges ; 
they condemned Him to death ; they nailed Him 
to the cross, and mocked and made sport of 
Him as He was hanging there in dreadful agony, 
bleeding and dying. 

And how did He act toward those who were 
nailing Him to the cross? He never spoke one 



42 When I See the Blood 

unkind word. When He was reviled He reviled 
not again. He* was gentle and kind to all. He 
prayed for His' murderers as He hung upon the 
cross with the blood streaming from His torn 
and mangled limbs, and His body all tortured 
with those dreadful wounds, He cried, "Father, 
forgive them, for they know not what they do." 
See that awful, cruel death on the cross. 

See how His back the scourges tear, 

Unto the bloody pillar bound ; 
The ploughers make long furrows there, 

Till all His body is one wound. 

In scorn they robe Him, crown, adore; 

In spite they rend His- robe away; 
They crush Him with that burden sore 

They drag Him up the accursed way. 

His sacred limbs they stretch, they tear, 
With nails they fasten to the wood ; 

His sacred limbs exposed and bare, 
Or only covered with His blood. 

Behold His temples crowned with thorn, 
His bleeding hands spread out so wide ; 

His streaming feet transfixed and torn, 
The fountain gushing from His side. 

Where is the King of Glory now, 

The everlasting Son of God ? 
The Immortal hangs His languid brow 

The Almighty faints beneath the load. 



When I See the Blood 43 

How can we doubt the word of one who 
loved us with such love as that? If we have 
taken Christ as our Saviour His death has settled 
for all our sins and we are as certain of heaven 
as if we were there now. "For if when we 
were enemies we were reconciled to God by the 
death of His Son much more being reconciled 
we shall be saved by His life." 

I once read of a father and son that illus- 
trates this verse: The son became so rebel- 
lious the father drove the boy from home. Some- 
time after that the mother on a dying bed, asked 
her husband if she could not have her son to 
come home so she could talk with him before her 
death. The father said no, the boy had been 
too rebellious and he had driven him from home 
and did not wish to see him, but the mother con- 
tinued to plead so earnestly until at last the father 
sent a telegram for his son to come home. When 
the son came home the dying mother called the 
father on one side of the bed and the son on 
the other, taking them by the hand and then say- 
ing, "Son be reconciled to father over your dying 
mother's body." But the son shook his head and 
said, "No, father drove me from home." Then 
she turned to the father and said, "Will you be 
reconciled to son over my dying body?" He 



44 When I See the Blood 

said, "No, I will not speak to him." So the 
mother continued pleading, holding to the hand 
of father and son until the last breath. When 
dead, the son, looking into the cold dead face 
of his mother, then let go her hand and looking 
over her dead body into his father's face said, 
"Father, will you pardon me over mother's dead 
body?" The father said yes, and embraced his 
son. So the father and son became reconciled 
to each other over the mother's dead body. So 
we become reconciled to God by the death of 
His Son on the cross. 

Some years ago we saw in the papers an illus- 
tration of the way of salvation. A man had been 
condemned in a Spanish court to be shot, but 
being an American citizen, and also of English 
birth, the consuls of the two countries interposed 
and declared that the Spanish authorities had 
no power to put him to death. What did they do 
to secure his life when their protest was not suffi- 
cient ? They wrapped him up in their flags ; 
they covered him with the Stars and Stripes, 
and then defied the executioners. "Now fire a 
shot if you dare, for if you do so you defy the 
nations represented by those flags, and you will 
bring the powers of those two great empires upon 
you." 



When I See the Blood 45 

There stood the man, and though a single 
shot might have ended his life, yet he was sur- 
rounded as though encased in steel. So Jesus 
Christ has taken our guilty souls ever since we 
believed in Him, and has wrapped around us the 
blood-red flag of His atoning sacrifice, and before 
God can destroy those of us who are wrapped in 
the blood of the atonement, He must reject His 
Son and dishonor His sacrifice, and that the great 
God will never do. Blessed be His name. 



Wew Creature Un Cbrist- 



"Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a 
new creature ; old things are passed away ; 
behold, all # things are become new." 2 Cor. 
v, 17. 

"There is therefore now no condemnation to 
them which are in Christ Jesus." Romans 
viii, 1 

This scripture shows that a man must get 
into Christ to become a new creature, that noth- 
ing he can do outside of Christ will make a new . 
creature out of him or save him from the curse 
of sin. Many changes are going on about us in 
this world. Look at the seasons. What changes 
they are making every year. Winter comes on 
with its frost and cold winds. Then the flow- 
ers fade and die, and the little birds go in their 
flight south in search of a warmer home. The 
leaves fade and die, and leave the trees naked 
and bare and the winds then wail through the 
leafless forest, as if weeping over some lost 
friend. The whole earth becomes covered with 
snow and ice. But after awhile the sun returns 
with its hot rays and the snow and ice begin to 



New Creature In Christ 47 

melt, and the earth begins to show itself again. 
The fields begin to get green, and the meadows 
begin to bloom with flowers, and the little streams 
murmur by the verdant banks singing their way 
to their ocean home. The hills and mountains 
again come out in their beautiful robes. The 
birds return with their sweet songs. And the 
old world that seemed for a few months to be 
dead, is all alive again. 

Now these kind of changes are going on about 
us all through life. But these changes will not 
make us a new creature. This is such a great 
change that when Christ was here on earth and 
got into conversation with a man named Nico- 
demus that He called it a birth and said to Nico- 
demus, "Ye must be born again." Now we will 
all have to get this new life or never enter heaven. 
A great many men think and teach today that 
this is nonsense to talk about a man being bom 
again or becoming a new creature in Christ. 
Men teach that when we are born in human 
flesh that our hearts are not bad but like pieces 
of white paper and if we are careful that nothing 
bad be written on them, they will always be clean 
and good. But this is contrary to the Word 
of God. David said, "Behold, I was shapen in 
iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me." 



48 New Creature In Christ 

And what was true about David's case has been 
true about the whole world. David was born 
with a sinful heart and all that have been born 
since have had the same kind of a heart. David 
says again, "The wicked are estranged from the 
womb ; they go astray as soon as they be born, 
speaking lies/' This writing of David shows us 
that when we are born, if sin does not appear at 
once, that it is in our heart. See how mad the 
little child will get in a short time after it has 
been in the world. Is not that sin showing itself ? 
Now our hearts, when we are born, are like the 
garden when ready to plant in the spring, we 
do not see the weeds but the seed is in the ground 
and soon the weeds come. Just so when we are 
born these wicked hearts are full of sin and it 
soon shows itself. And there must come a great 
change before we can enter heaven. We can not 
bring about this new life by what we can do. It 
does not come by good deeds that we do, such as 
reading the Bible, making good resolutions, 
joining the church, being baptized or saying 
prayers. We can not make for ourselves a new 
heart by anything we can do in this life. This 
I think can be well illustrated by a fable I once 
read. The fable said there was an emperor in 
China who had a great fondness for making pets 



New Creature In Christ 



49 



of pigs. Yet he did not like their dirty habit of 
running into the dirt and mud. But still, said 
it was not the fault of the pig, that the pig could 
be so taught that it would loathe the mud and be 
nice and clean like a lamb. So one day he said 
to one of his friends that he would prove to the 
world it was not the fault of the pig, but he 
would show how to make a pig nice and clean. 
Now he had a nice palace built for his pig, and 
as soon as the little pig could live without its 
mother, it was taken away from her, so it would 
learn no bad habits from her. The pig was put 
into this palace where it could get to no other 
pigs, and was fed from silver dishes and slept on 
carpet and had no mud in which to wallow. The 
emperor got some of the wisest men in his king- 
dom to take care of the pig and teach it. After 
awhile the old emperor said the pig's education 
was finished and he now had no bad habits. So 
one day the emperor told his servant to get the 
pet pig ready and they would take a walk 
and let the pig see some of the world, and 
let the world see how nice and clean an edu- 
cated hog would appear to the world. The ser- 
vant got the pig ready, dressed him up in a 
velvet jacket, embroidered with gold, and put 
gold rings on his legs. Now his pig looked so 



50 New Creature In Christ 

nice as they went on their walk. Just as the 
emperor began to feel very proud of his pet pig, 
they came to a place where some pigs were 
wallowing in the mud. In a moment the pig 
forgot his clothes and his training, and before 
his teacher could do anything the pig broke loose 
and ran into the mud, wallowing with the other 
pigs. The poor emperor was then much disap- 
pointed. He .took his pig back and had him 
washed and put back into the palace, and said it 
was the fault of the other pigs that made him 
run into the mud. And he then said he would 
have him taught a little more and not go about 
other bad hogs with his pig and he would not act 
bad then like other pigs. So one day he told his 
servant to get the pig out again for another 
walk. This time they went through the garden 
of the palace where the pig could see no other 
hogs. They took a long walk, the pig was doing 
nicely till on their return they come along the 
back of the garden where there was a ditch full 
of mud. The pig had never seen this before and 
there was no other pig to set him a bad example, 
but into the mud the pig jumped and wallowed 
just like it did before. Now the emperor was 
in great distress. He loved his pig and he knew 
it was not the bad example of other hogs this 



New Creature In Christ 51 

time, but only his piggish nature made him so 
fond of the mud. As the emperor was in great 
distress and did not know what to do, the fable 
says a fairy appeared and hearing what was done 
said to the emperor, "If you will give me your 
pig a little while I will make him hate dirt and 
love to be clean." "Oh ! do it," said the emperor, 
so the fairy took the pig in his arms, and open- 
ing his body, cut out his heart and put in a 
lamb's heart in its place. After this the emperor 
had no more trouble with his pig. It was nice 
and clean and never went about the mud any 
more. Now what a changed pig, what it loved 
before it now hated. 

While this is a fable it shows there must be 
a change of heart to make us act different. If 
you could take out the pig's heart and put in a 
lamb's, the pig would then act like a lamb and 
still look like a pig. So when we get a new 
heart or life our old Adam flesh just looks like 
a child of the devil, but we are not. We have 
become a child of God and can now act like one 
because old things have now passed away and all 
things become new. We have now a new life 
in our old Adam body. Yet our old Adam body 
has made no change, but a new heart came in 
that has changed our mind about sin and God. 



52 New Creature In Christ 

Some may say, "How can I get this new life that 
I may be a child of God?" Just by looking to 
Christ. "Look unto me all ye ends of the earth 
and be saved." We are saved just like the child- 
ren of Israel were made whole when bitten by 
the fiery serpent, only by looking. The fiery 
serpent by which they were bitten was a poison 
serpent. The brazen serpent to which they 
looked, and were cured, had no poison. Now 
in Adam's fall came death upon the whole world 
because his fall brought the whole w r orld into sin. 
But looking to the second Adam, which is Christ, 
saves us from sin, because Christ has no sin. 
Just see how the bitten Israelite was made whole, 
not by anything he could do, or any physician 
could do for him. It was only look to the brazen 
serpent and live. Look at that poor mother by 
her bitten boy who seems to be dying. All in 
her home but this boy have been bitten and are 
now dead and buried in the sand. Her husband 
and three daughters and two sons have been 
borne away and covered up in the sands of the 
desert. How lonely the mother now feels by her 
last dying son, who wants to go with her to the 
land that flows with milk and honey. As the poor 
heart-broken mother is now by the side of her 
boy, wiping the death sweat from his face, all at 



New Creature In Christ 53 

once the boy looks at his mother and said, ''What 
noise is that I hear?" * The mother answers, 
"Nothing, my dear boy, only the trouble is with 
your mind; I hear no sound." The mother's 
mind is so absorbed with her dying boy that she 
does not hear the noise in the camp. But the 
son turns again his dying eyes on his mother, 
and says, "Mother, listen, I do hear a noise that 
sounds to me like shouting in the camp." The 
son then said, "It may be, mother, that they have 
found some remedy for the poor bitten Israelite. 
Go to the door and see, there may be some help 
for me yet." The mother goes to the door and 
such wild excitement she never saw before in her 
life. She cries out to those running by her door, 
"What does all this mean?" They answer, 
"Good news to the bitten Israelite. Moses has 
a brazen serpent lifted upon a pole and all that 
look to the serpent are healed at once. And 
the shouts you hear are the shouts of those who 
are being healed." The poor mother then rushes 
back to her dear boy and said, "Son, there is a 
remedy." He then said, "What is the remedy?" 
She told him a brazen serpent on a pole and all 
that look at it are "healed at once. The son then 
said, "Oh ! mother, get me to the door that I 
may see it and be healed." Now the mother 



54 New Creature In Christ 

lays hold of her son and pulls him to the door, 
and said, "Look yonder at the serpent shining 
in the sunlight/' But the boy is so near death, 
and his eyes so dimmed with death that it seems 
almost impossible for him to see the serpent. 
Just like thousands today who have the dark 
cloud of unbelief over their eyes so they can not 
see Christ. But the mother loves her boy and 
she continues to point toward the serpent and 
say, ''Look, look, look!" till all at once the boy 
makes one great leap from his mother's arms, 
shouting, "I saw the serpent, I saw the serpent, 
and I am well." He then runs through the camp, 
shouting and telling the others how he was 
healed when he looked and saw the serpent. 

Just so we are saved by looking to Christ on 
the cross who died for our sins. One look at 
Christ by the eye of faith will save from the 
wrath of sin forever. Oh ! how simple and plain 
is the way to heaven, and yet thousands are 
sinking down to hell on their good deeds, such as 
paying their debts, giving to the poor, reading 
their Bible and saying prayers. When it is only 
look to Christ and live forever. "For God so 
loved the world that He gave His only begotten 
Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life." As Spurgeon 



New Creature In Christ 



55 



once said about the old colored man who said he 
fell down on the promise of God and never 
kicked. Like the little brother and sister who 
were once going along the railroad track one 
hot summer day, as they came to the entrance of 
a long tunnel on the road they stopped and the 
brother said to the sister, "If we should go 
through this tunnel we would save ourselves from 
the hot rays of the sun in crossing the high 
mountain." So they entered the tunnel, after 
they had gone some distance, the little brother 
stopped and said, "Listen, sister, I hear a train 
coming on this track and if w T e remain on the 
track the train will run over us and we will be 
killed and they will never know at home what 
became of us." So they got over on the other 
track, and they had only gone a short distance 
when the brother said again, " Sister, listen, a 
train is coming on this track and the two trains 
are going to pass in this dark tunnel." Now, 
the brother went across the track and found a 
rock against the side of the tunnel and said, 
"Come here, sister, and get on this rock and cling 
to it while the trains are passing." The brother 
went on the other side opposite the sister and got 
on a rock. As the trains were passing the brother 
would hollo, amid the rattle of the car wheels, 



56 New Creature In Christ 

"Sister, cling to the rock and you will be safe." 
When the train had passed and the smoke began 
to die away, the brother crawled across the track 
and found his sister safe. So if we only cling 
to the Rock of Ages it will keep us safely while 
the train is passing through the valley of the 
shadow of death. 



love Ha tbe Wbole of IReUaton. 



"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision 
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision ; hut faith 
which worketh by love." Galations v, 6. 

Paul tells us again in the thirteenth chapter 
of First Corinthians : "Though I speak with the 
tongues of men and of angels, and have not char- 
ity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling 
cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, 
and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; 
and though I have all faith, so that I could re- 
move mountains, and have not charity, I am 
nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to 
feed the poor, and though I give my body to be 
burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me 
nothing." So Paul tells us that we might speak 
with the eloquence of men and angels combined 
and have faith enough to remove mountains 
from their everlasting foundations and hurl them 
into the sea, and yet have no love, it would profit 
us nothing. That we might give all of our goods 
to feed the poor and our bodies to be burned, and 
if it was not love for Christ that moved us to do 
this it would be nothing in the sight of God. 



58 Love Is the Whole of Religion 

Many people, and I think, many who are saved, 
have such a wrong idea of the religion of Christ. 
John in his first epistle says, "Beloved, let us 
love one another, for love is of God ; and every 
one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God ; 
He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God 
is love. Herein is your love made perfect, that 
we may have boldness in the day of judgment; 
because as He is, so are we in this world. There 
is no fear in love ; but perfect love casteth out 
fear : because fear hath torment. He that f eareth 
is not made perfect in love." Love delivers the 
soul from the power of legal motives. 

Many teach and preach that believers should 
turn away from sin through the fear of going to 
hell. Prove to the man who turns from sin, 
through the fear of going to hell, that there is no 
hell, and he will go right on into sin, so this is 
no love for Christ that keeps him from sin. Per- 
fect love leads a person to obey God, not because 
he fears the wrath of God or is afraid of going 
to hell, but because he loves God and loves to do 
His will. The true child of God should turn 
from sin because he hates and loathes it, and 
knows that in doing wrong that he would dis- 
please the one that loved him and gave Himself 
for him. Those who turn from sin through the 



Love Is the Whole of Religion 59 

fear of going to "hell are ignorant of the religion 
of Jesus Christ, or they have no religion. 

The man who pays his debts for fear he will 
be sold out or lose his credit in the bank, is a 
dishonest man. But the man who pays his debts 
because he loves to do what is right and to make 
his neighbor happy, is the right kind of a man. 
The man who pays his debts through fear of the 
law and the man who turns from sin through fear 
of hell, do this only to keep self from suffering, 
and that is a selfish motive and is not the religion 
of Christ. The motive of the true child of God 
is to live for the glory of God and the good of 
others. The love of Christ moves us to be willing 
to do and to suffer for the good of others. Like 
the father who loves his family. He gives him- 
self up to hard labor day by day and from year 
to year, through the whole of a long life, rising 
early and eating the bread of carefulness con- 
tinually to promote the welfare of his family. 
Now, he does not make this self-denial and toil 
through this long life because he is afraid of his 
family doing him some harm, but because of the 
love he has for his home. So the love he has for 
his family makes the work not a grief nor a 
burden, but a delight. So the child of God should 
have such love for the cause of Christ that he 



60 Love Is the Whole of Religion 

would be delighted in doing anything that he 
knew would please the Lord. 

Now, those who teach that we should turn 
from sin, through fear of going to hell, do not 
teach the truth, as it is a faith that works by 
love and not by fear. Some say they are going to 
be faithful to be saved and if not faithful will be 
lost. No one will ever go to heaven in this way, 
as no kind of work or prayers can ever put away 
sin. As Charles Finney said in one of his ser- 
mons, that the man who knows the way to heaven 
knows he might as well sit still till he is in hell 
as to try to do anything to save himself or to 
keep himself saved. 

Paul tells in Romans that we are justified 
by faith without works. We do not work to be 
saved, but because we are saved. We do not 
work to become a child of God, but work because 
we are a child and have been born into the King- 
dom. Do not work to get life, but because we 
have life. After we are begotten by the Holy 
Ghost we are just as much a child of God as we 
will be when we have been in heaven ten thou- 
sand years. The child born in an earthly home 
is just as much the child of that home the day it 
is born as it is when an hundred years old. We 
are just as much saved when we are justified by 



Love Is the Whole of Religion 61 

the blood of Christ as Paul, or any other saint in 
heaven is saved, because we have been justified 
through Christ from all things, and those in 
heaven are not any more than justified from all 
things. So if you have been saved by the blood 
you have all that any one in heaven ever had to 
save them. So all that have been redeemed by 
the cross are in Christ and a part of His body, 
and if one goes down to hell all will go there. 
But thank God, no one who has ever been washed 
in the blood of Christ will ever go to hell, or 
has ever gone there. Those of us who are saved 
can not go to hell, for God can not lie, and He 
says, "I give unto them eternal life; and they 
shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck 
them out of my hand. My Father which gave 
them Me is greater than all ; and no man is able 
to pluck them out of My Father's hand." So 
all the wicked men of earth and all the devils in 
hell can not get one believer out of the hands of 
Christ, for He is stronger than all earth and hell 
combined. 

Some people say, "Well, the devil can not 
take you out of the hands of the Lord, but you 
can take yourself out." Well, if that is true, 
then man is stronger than God or the devil, and 
a man can go to hell any time, and whip the 



62 Love Is the Whole of Religion 

devil and put out the fire, and then go to heaven 
and have things his own way there. But the 
truth is, God is stronger than man or devil, and 
what He has done they can not undo. So if 
we are a child of God we should have such faith 
in God's word as to cast out all fear of ever 
going to hell. We will never be happy in this 
life as long as we have the dark thunder cloud of 
doubt hanging between us and heaven. Perfect 
love and faith in God and His Word will cast out 
all fear of ever being lost. Now, the child of 
God should not think of serving Christ with 
slavish fear as a slave, but through love as Christ 
has redeemed them from the curse of sin and 
made them free. 

In slave time a negro woman was being sold 
in one of our Southern towns. As the poor slave 
stood on the street, weeping, while her little 
children were clinging to her clothes, a man 
passing by who never owned slaves, looked and 
saw the poor woman weeping and his heart was 
touched with pity, and he began bidding on her 
and bought the woman. When he went to her 
she was still weeping and he asked her what was 
her trouble. She said she had been sold and did 
not know into whose hands she had fallen. He 
told her that she was no longer a slave, that she 



Love Is the Whole of Religion 63 

was free till her dying day. She did not under- 
stand how it could be until he told her that he 
had redeemed her from her slavery with his 
money and that she could take her little children 
and go where she pleased. She then caught him 
by the arm and said, "Let me serve you while I 
live, because you have set me free." So she went 
home with him, and as his friends came to visit 
him, they saw how hard this woman worked and 
they would say to her, "Why do you work so 
hard for this man when you are free and no 
longer a slave ?" She would say, "Oh, it was this 
man who set me free, and I serve him so faith- 
fully because I love him." Now, this is the 
reason why we should serve Christ, because He 
has redeemed us with His precious blood and 
we should have such love for Him as to be glad 
to do anything for Him. 

God wants His children to be happy and use- 
ful in this world, and if we are filled with doubts 
and fears about going to heaven we can neither 
be happy nor useful. Love for God and faith in 
His word will cast out all fear of death. That 
is why David said in twenty-third Psalm, "Yea, 
though I walk through the valley of the shadow 
of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with 
me." He knew from the word of God that Christ 



64 Love Is the Whole of Religion 

would "never leave nor forsake him," and that 
when going through the valley of death no dan- 
ger, as Christ would be with him. So we need 
have no more fears about going through the val- 
ley of death than David had, when we come to 
that valley and shadow of death Christ will be 
with us, and as we go through the valley He will 
talk with us and light up the way until we come 
out into heaven on the streets of gold with the 
redeemed all about us in their white robes, shout- 
ing, "Glory and honor be unto God and His Son 
forever." Bless God, with His Word as our tel- 
escope we can look away across the dark hills 
and mountains of this sin-cursed earth and see 
our home in glory. As Christian, in Pilgrim's 
Progress, when on his way to the Celestial City, 
came to a high hill called Clear, from this hill he 
took up his glass and looked and saw the City 
far away in the distance, and said every time he 
looked he got some of the glory of the City. So 
with the assurance we get from God's word we 
can stand on the high mountain of God's grace, 
where no cloud will ever intervene between us 
and that far-off home. 




MRS. W. W. SMITH 
1907 



Seek jfirst tbe IktnQfcom of (Bob* 



4 'But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and 
His righteousness, and all these things shall be 
added unto you." Matthew vi, 33. 

Men show their wisdom in the choice they 
make in seeking the Kingdom of God and its 
riches, or the world and its riches. If I were to 
stand before an audience with a diamond in one 
hand, worth thousands, and a pebble in the other 
worth nothing, and then explain to the audience 
and show the difference in the two objects, and 
then ask some one in the audience to take their 
choice, and instead of taking the diamond they 
should take the pebble. We would say they were 
unwise. Now r , can we not reason the same way 
with spiritual things as with temporal? Will 
not the same principle hold out ? I think it will. 
When the man knows if he enters into the King- 
dom of God that he is happy for time and eter- 
nity, but if he misses heaven that he will be 
miserable forever. Then the man is unwise and 
makes a great mistake who misses heaven. I 
can find no words to explain or express the awful 
loss and misery that shall come on the soul who 



66 Seek First the Kingdom of God 

fails to enter heaven. It is awful to think of the 
sinner dying unpardoned and being driven far 
away from the presence of the Lord and from His 
glory into everlasting punishment. As one great 
divine describes the great loss of the soul that 
fails to enter the home of the redeemed: "In 
saying that the soul that goes to hell brings upon 
himself more misery and suffering than all the 
w r orld has endured up to this hour. Yet the 
amount of actual misery this world has experi- 
enced has been very great. Suppose you could 
ascend up into the heavens, high enough to look 
over a whole continent and take in at a glance 
all its miseries, see all forms of human woe, 
such as the slavery of the nation's intemperance, 
war, lust, disease, or could you look over some 
battle-field, and hear, as in one ascending volume, 
all its groans and curses, and take the dimen- 
sions of its unutterable woes. As you could hear 
the awful groans as they rolled up to heaven, 
you would indeed say there was an ocean of 
agony in this old world of ours. Yet this is but 
a drop in the great ocean compared to the suffer- 
ing and loss the sinner must endure who after 
all misses heaven." 

If you. were to see the train rush over a few 
men, grinding their limbs and flesh into a jelly, 



Seek First the Kingdom of God 67 

you could not bear the sight, you might faint. 
But what if you could see and hear all the ago- 
nies of earth brought together, and hear the 
dreadful groans ascending in one great roar that 
would shake the very earth? Oh, how your 
nerves would quiver! Yet this is nothing com- 
pared with the eternal suffering of one lost soul. 
The soul that misses heaven will suffer more than 
all earth and all the millions in the fires of hell 
have ever suffered up till now, because the suf- 
fering of earth and hell has had an end up till 
this present time. But the soul that dies out of 
Christ, and driven into the fires of hell, his suf- 
fering will never have an end. Then is it not 
important for the soul to first seek the King- 
dom of God ? Now let us look a little at what a 
man gains by being saved in the Kingdom of 
God. He gets into the possession of more hap- 
piness than all the families of earth have enjoyed 
from Adam down to this present hour, because 
this happiness has had an end, but the man re- 
deemed through the blood of Christ, his happi- 
ness shall never end. So more than earth's hap- 
piness is in store for him, as he is in possession 
of more happiness than the saints of heaven have 
had up till now, as theirs have had an end, but 
the saved man's happiness has no end. 



68 Seek First the Kingdom of God 

j 

Let us use an illustration, something like 
this, to get a little idea of some length of the 
happiness of the saved: Suppose each drop of 
water that has ever fallen on this earth to rep- 
resent ten thousand years of celestial joy, each 
snowflake that has ever fallen on the earth rep- 
resent ten thousand years of celestial joy, and 
each leaf of the forest ten thousand years of 
celestial joy; now, let them go by a drop of 
water every ten thousand years, then a snow- 
flake every ten thousand years, then a leaf of 
the forest every ten thousand years. Oh! just 
think of the length of time, and then the saved 
soul would only be in the bloom and springtime 
of eternity with his God in a world where it is 
one eternal noon. Now, it is a very important 
question than about a man seeking the Kingdom 
of God for the gain he makes in eternity. Yet 
the text tells us of a gain in this life. 

Let us see the Scriptures on this subject: 
"And every one that hath forsaken homes, or 
brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or 
wife, or children, or lands, for My name's sake, 
shall receive an hundred-fold, and shall inherit 
everlasting life/' Matthew xix, 29. "But this 
I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also 
sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall 



Seek First the Kingdom of God 69 

reap bountifully." 2 Corinthians ix, 6. Now, 
we see from the Word of God, as we forsake all 
for the glory of God and the good of others, 
that God gives us all things. "He that spared 
not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us 
all, how shall He not with Him also freely give 
us all things." Romans viii, 32. 

The more liberal we are in making sacrifices 
for the good and happiness of others, the more 
the Lord puts into our hands. That is why He 
gave so much of this world's goods to Moody, 
Spurgeon, and Miiller, because they used it for 
the good of others. Just to think of a man in 
a lifetime getting something like one hundred 
million, as Miiller did, and used it for the bene- 
fit of poor orphans. God knows which of His 
children will make good stewards in His King- 
dom, so He gives large sums of money to those 
who will use it well for the good of others. Now 
to show that God does take care of those who 
look after the good of others : Some years ago, 
in a prayer-meeting up in Massachusetts, I heard 
a man one night praying, and said in his prayer, 
"Oh! Lord, if I can be more useful by having 
stones thrown on me as on Stephen, Lord, let 
them come." The next day I met him, I said, 
"Shevere, did you mean what you said in your 



70 Seek First the Kingdom of God 

prayer last night ?" He then told me of his con- 
version, said he was employed in a store in New 
York at a salary of about one hundred dollars 
a month, but after he was saved he then had con- 
victions to go out on the streets to preach, and 
did so for three weeks' time. During that time 
he said he only got fifteen cents and was often 
stoned by the police. One evening as he was 
coming home out of heart and thinking to him- 
self, "Is God going to let me starve at His 
work?" Just as he came near his home he saw 
a man rolling a barrel of flour in at his door. 
He said to the man that he was at the wrong 
place with his barrel, that it should go into the 
store beneath. The man said, "I know what I 
am doing, this barrel of flour is for Shevere." 
Then he said to me, "I have not been afraid of 
the Lord taking care of me from that day till 
this time." Told me that since that time he had 
received, in gifts from the people in the large 
cities, as much as one hundred dollars a day for 
preaching the gospel of Christ. He gave up a 
salary of one hundred a month, and afterward 
the Lord would give him that much for one day. 
Thousands of God's backslidden children think, 
"I would like to get one hundred dollars a day," 
but how would you like three weeks' work and 



Seek First the Kingdom of God W 71 

only fifteen cents, and stones thrown on you by 
police? You would soon say, "Lord deliver me 
from that kind of pay." 

To show again how God rewards those who 
take care of others : Years ago, in England, 
there was a poor widow woman with two chil- 
dren who made her living by keeping a light- 
house on the seacoast. As visitors came she 
would show them through the lighthouse, and as 
they went away, give her small sums of money 
such as nickels and dimes of our money. So 
she got a very small sum of money each day, by 
which she made a very scant living for herself 
and children. One Lord's day she heard a min- 
ister preach about mission work and how we 
ought to give to support this work. The poor 
woman got awfully troubled about what she 
ought to do in that line of work, so at last she 
said she would give all she got on Monday to 
this work. Monday as she went back to her 
work at the lighthouse a gentleman came, she 
took him around through the lighthouse, show- 
ing him all she could along the seacoast. As 
he went away, he gave her five dollars. She 
then did not know what to do, as she had never 
gotten so much for a day's work before in her 
life. Now, she went to her neighbors and asked 



72 Seek First the Kingdom of God 

them. They told her to give a few shillings to 
the mission cause and take the rest to buy clothes 
for her children. But that night she was 
troubled and went to the Lord in prayer about 
the money, what to do with it, so she got the 
same convictions as before to give it all to the 
Lord. Next day she went back again, that day 
a woman and a little girl came, she took the 
same care in showing them around, as they left 
the little girl gave her a hundred-dollar note. 
That little girl became Queen Victoria, that died 
in London, where the rich paid one thousand 
dollars for a window to see the funeral proces- 
sion as it passed through the streets. 

I know that God will take care of His peo- 
ple, from my own experience, as well as that of 
others, and from His word. When we were 
living in California, in 1894, when, through the 
long illness of my wife and child, I had gotten 
out of means of support, one night I went to 
attend service at the Presbyterian Church, that 
night the minister said there was to be a collec- 
tion taken up for the support of broken-down 
ministers in the State. Well, I thought to my- 
self, if any in the State in a harder place than 
myself they ought to have help from somewhere. 
As the baskets started around, I had but thirty 



Seek First the Kingdom of God 73 

cents, all the money I had in the world, I said 
to myself, "God does not want my thirty cents, 
I will pray for them, that is all I can do for 
them." But just at that time the thought came 
to me as if I heard some one speak, saying, 
"Throw in part of your money and see if the 
Lord can not do something for you." So I did, 
and the next morning I started down the street, 
not having money enough to buy a roast of beef. 
As I went along the street, thinking how I was 
to care for my sick wife and little boy, the tears 
would come in my eyes as I walked the streets. 
When I came to the post-office I received a letter 
from Judge Johnson, of Bluefield, West Vir- 
ginia, and Mr. Straley, of Princeton, West Vir- 
ginia, with a check for twenty-five dollars, say- 
ing, "When you need help, let us know." I 
then went back in great haste to tell my wife, 
as I showed her the check she said, "We ought 
never be afraid to trust the Lord." In a few 
days my physician told me I would have to take 
my wife and go up on the side of the Rocky 
Mountains, above the fog line, if I wished her 
to get better. We then went to a little town on 
the side of the mountain by the name of Penran, 
California. In a few days after we had gotten 
there we ate breakfast and had but one dime left 



74 Seek First the Kingdom of God 

toward preparing for the next meal. I started 
down the street again, with my head down, 
thinking this looks very dark, just at that time 
a man called to me across the street, saying, 
"I have some money for you." I went back 
again in great haste to tell how the Lord was 
providing for us among strangers. So the Lord 
will provide for His children. 

In Moody and Spurgeon's book on prayer 
there is a wonderful example of this kind. There 
was a man in Pennsylvania by the name of 
Brown. One night he awoke about three o'clock 
in the morning, telling his wife there was a 
child of God somewhere starving and he could 
not tell where he was, she told him just to keep 
on talking with the Lord and the Spirit would 
tell him. About four o'clock he woke his wife 
and told her that it was a man about fifteen 
miles from there at a little house on the top of 
the mountain, where they* had passed in the 
summer. Then he looked out at the window, 
saw the snow had fallen about one foot deep. 
They got breakfast and put provisions in the 
sleigh, and he drove as fast as he could and got 
to the place about noon. As he came near the 
cabin he heard the man praying and asking God 
to put it into the heart of some child of God to 



Seek First the Kingdom of God 75 

send him something to eat. Brown opened the 
door, asked him how long he had been without 
anything to eat. He said three days, so ferown 
told him that God woke him up in the night 
and told him, by conviction of the Spirit, where 
he was, and that he needed help. This is just 
as much of a miracle as Elijah being fed by a 
raven. Bless God, we still have the God of 
Abraham, Moses, and Elijah, and can still say, 
as David, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not 
want. He maketh me to lie down in green pas- 
tures ; He leadeth me beside the still waters. He 
restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths 
of righteousness for His name's sake. Yea, 
though I walk through the valley of the shadow 
of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with 
me ; Thy rod and staff, they comfort me. Thou 
preparest a table before me in the presence of 
mine enemies ; Thou anointest my head with oil ; 
my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and 
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, 
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord 
forever. " 



ail (Boob to tbe Christian. 



"And we know that all things work together 
for good to them that love God." Romans 
viii, 28. 

In old times there was a stone, called the 
philosopher's stone, believed to be somewhere in 
the world, and it is said that learned men, but 
not very wise men, thought this stone had power 
to turn everything into gold that it touched. 
Now, suppose this to be true and that we had 
this stone. What a time we would have getting 
money, just to touch the rocks and hills and they 
would turn to gold. What would we care for 
the gold of California, or Alaska, or the silver 
mines of Africa? We would care nothing for 
all the gold and silver of the world. When we 
could turn everything around us into gold. How 
rich any one would be that had this stone in 
their possession. But the child of God is much 
richer than the man who was in possession of 
such a stone as that. The child of God has 
something which turns everything to good in- 
stead of gold, so that is much better. Too much 
gold has ruined thousands of men, soul and 




WILEY WINTON SMITH, 
1907 



Jr. 



All Good to the Christian 77 

body, and too much might destroy all of our 
happiness instead of making us happy. The love 
of money this day is the great rock in the sea 
of life, upon which many a vessel has been 
wrecked and destroyed forever. Now, it is much 
better to have everything in our path in life 
turn to our good than turn to gold. 

Even the trials and afflictions that come to 
us, God will turn them to our good. For He has 
said in the text: "And we know that all things 
work together for good to them that love God." 
There are offices these days called insurance 
offices, such as fire, life and marine insurance. 
So if you had your home insured you would not 
have it insured to keep it from taking fire, but 
if it took fire, to get paid for the loss when it 
would burn. Those who insure our property do 
not keep it from burning, but only pay for it 
when it burns. When a man pays a certain 
sum of money to have his life insured, this does 
not prevent him from sickness or death, but if he 
dies his family gets so much money at his death. 
Just as the man who has his vessel and cargo 
insured when he sets sail at sea. This does not 
mean that the insurance will prevent any storm 
from overtaking the ship by which it may be 
destroyed. The vessel may spring a leak, or be 



78 All Good to the Christian 

f 
wrecked, or lost at sea. But the insurance means 
that if the vessel is lost or wrecked at sea it will 
pay the loss. Something of the same thing 
takes place when we become Christians. The 
Lord keeps a general insurance office for His 
children. He insures them against harm and . 
loss. By this insurance He does not prevent 
them from ever getting sick or having any 
trouble, but when these things come He turns 
them for our good and makes them a blessing 
to us. Just like when Joseph was thrown into 
the pit and sold by his brethren to the Ishmael- 
ites. Now, Joseph's brethren intended to do 
him harm, but God turned the whole affair for 
the good of Joseph and afterwards for the good 
also of his mean brethren. As the years of famine 
came on Joseph sent provision from Egypt to 
his father and brethren. So we see old Jacob 
made a big mistake when he said that his son 
Joseph was dead and all things were against 
him. Joseph was alive and God was working 
him for the good of his father, Jacob. But 
Jacob did not see nor know what God was doing, 
it was all in the dark to him. 

One reason why we find it so hard to believe 
when trouble comes upon us that it is for our 
good, is because we can not see the end nor 



All Good to the Christian 79 

understand how it will turn out for our good. 
But when we see the end as Jacob did, then we 
see it was for our good and a great blessing to 
us. Like an old pious Jew who lived among 
people that made fun of him for being so re- 
ligious. At last he determined to leave the 
neighborhood in which he lived. But before he 
started on his journey, he bought him a lamp 
by which he could read his precious Bible. Then 
he got him a rooster to crow to wake him up 
early in the morning so he could read his Bible. 
He also got him a donkey on which to ride and 
carry his things. Then he started on his way. 
One evening, growing late as he came up to a 
little village, there was no hotel and the people 
would not keep him, so he thought he would 
stop at the first woods as he went on, saying to 
himself, it was mighty hard a man could get 
no place for shelter. But God is good, and 
works all things for good to them that love Him. 
As he got into the woods, hitched his donkey, 
lit his lamp, began reading his precious Bible, 
soon it began raining and the wind blew T out his 
lamp and continued blowing so hard he could 
not light his lamp any more. "What a pity," he 
said, "I can not read my Bible, but all for the 
best, God is good." Then he thought he would 



80 All Good to the Christian 

lie down and go to sleep. Just about the time 
he was going to sleep a wolf came and caught 
his rooster and made a meal of him. Then he 
said, "I am so sorry for my new loss, my com- 
panion is now gone, no rooster to wake me early 
to read my Bible. But all for the best." But 
no sooner had he uttered these words than he 
was frightened and alarmed by the roar of a 
lion that in a few moments devoured his donkey. 
He then said, "This is the greatest loss of all. 
What shall I do now? My lamp gone out, my 
rooster and my donkey all gone. But all for 
the best, God works all for good to them that 
love Him." He then spent the rest of the night 
a little restless. The next morning he went to 
the little village to buy him a donkey on which 
to carry his things, but when he got there to 
his surprise all in the little village were dead. 
It seemed that during the night a band of robbers 
had entered the place and killed the inhabitants 
and robbed their houses. So he was surprised 
at the wonderful care God had taken of him, 
as soon as he had recovered a little from the 
surprise he lifted his voice and said, "Oh! God, 
thou God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, how 
wonderful Thou art. Now I know and see how 
blind and ignorant we poor mortals are to look 



All Good to the Christian 81 

on those things as evils which are sent for our 
good. If those hard-hearted people had not 
driven me away from the village I should have 
perished with them. If my lamp had not gone 
out the robbers would have seen it and killed 
me. If the wolf had not eaten my rooster, he 
might have crowed, or my donkey, if alive, 
might have been braying and the robbers heard 
and killed me." This is the way God turns what 
we think evils into things that work for our 
good. On account of our blindness and lack of 
faith in God's management we have had to suf- 
fer much pain, and have had many dark hours 
along the path of life. 

Sometimes sickness, trial or disappointment 
is the very best thing that can happen to a 
person. When God sees that this is the case He 
will let that sickness or trouble come, but when 
it comes He watches over it carefully and directs 
it in such a way that it will only do good to the 
person to whom it is sent. To illustrate this, 
take a large lump of golden ore that was found 
in California, in 1895, which was worth about 
one hundred thousand dollars. Take a large 
lump like this, look at it and see the gold shining 
and glittering, but here and there earth and 
rocks you can see in the lump. It is worth a 



82 All Good to the Christian 

large sum of money, but not fit for use with all 
this earth and rock mixed with the gold. Now 
before it can be used the gold must be separated 
from the earth and rock. To do this the lump 
of ore must be broken into pieces, put into a 
furnace of great heat until the gold melts and 
runs out, leaving the earth and rock. Now, you 
see it took hard blows, and a hot furnace to 
separate the gold from the earth and make the 
gold fit for use. So God's people are like the 
ore in the lump they have so many sins remain- 
ing about them that the trials and afflictions 
which God permits to come upon them in this 
life are the hammers by which He breaks them 
in pieces and the furnaces by which He melts 
and purifies them and makes them fit for His 
service. Like David said : "Before I was 
afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept Thy 
word. It is good for me that I have been 
afflicted, that I might learn Thy statutes. I 
know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are right 
and that Thou, in faithfulness, hast afflicted me." 
It is said that one day when George Whit- 
field was preaching from the text, "Wherefore 
glorify ye God in the fires," he said, "Some years 
ago I was at Shields and w r ent to a glass works, 
and saw a w r orkman take a piece of glass and put 



All Good to the Christian 83 

it into three furnaces in succession. And I 
asked him, "Why do you put it into so many 
fires?" He answered, "Oh! sir, the first was 
not hot enough nor the second, and therefore we 
put it into the third. Heat will make the glass 
transparent/ ' Oh, thought I, does this man put 
the glass into one furnace after another that it 
may be made more transparent. Then O, my 
God, put me into one furnace after another that 
my soul may become more transparent. So like 
Whitfield, we ought to be willing at any time 
to go into the fire if it makes us more useful in 
God's service. Too many of God's people these 
days are looking for ease and comfort instead 
of the fires like Whitfield. 

So few people today are willing to suffer or 
make any great sacrifice for the glory of God 
and that is why they know so little of His ways 
and so much of their life is spent in darkness. 
Charles Finney, one of the greatest preachers 
that ever lived, said when his wife died that he 
felt like murmuring at first, and could not under- 
stand why God had taken his wife away from 
him. Then he thought, "Did I want her to live 
here to make me happy, or did I want her to live 
for her happiness? If I wanted her to stay for 
my happiness then that was only selfishness, but 



84 All Good to the Christian 

if I wished to live for her happiness, which I 
did, then she was far happier in heaven than 
I could make her in my earthly home, so I did 
not want her back in this world of sin and 
death." That is why we should not want any 
of our loved ones back who have gone to 
heaven, because they are so much happier there 
than on earth with us. 

We make many mistakes when we look at 
our own interest instead of looking at the good 
of others. Some years ago, in Floyd County, 
Virginia, I met a man by the name of Wells. 
As we sat at the supper table that night he told 
me about the death of one of his children, said 
his daughter, about sixteen years of age, who 
was such a good Christian that everybody in 
the neighborhood seemed to love her. So one 
evening she was building a fire in the stove to 
get supper, and after she had a little fire in the 
stove then she took up the oil can again pour- 
ing on more oil until the oil flew up in a flame 
and set her clothes all on fire. She ran into the 
house and they did all they could to extinguish 
the flames but could not, she died in one hour 
from the time she was burned. They said when 
she was dying she sang sweetly almost to the last 
breath. As the father and mother sat at the 



All Good to the Christian 85 

table and talked about the death of their dear 
daughter, the tears ran down their cheeks. Then 
Mr. Wells said to me, "Brother Smith, I can not 
understand why she took up the oil can a second 
time when she was always so careful about 
everything she did.'' I said, "Mr. Wells, I do 
not know but I may understand it. How were 
you living before her death?" "Not right," he 
said. "How are you now living?" I asked him. 
His answer was, "Willing to do anything God 
reveals to me." To show what love he had for 
Christ and His cause, Mr. Wells wanted a 
church built in the neighborhood near his home. 
He was a man of but little means, but he gave 
three hundred dollars, almost all the means he 
had, and then said, "If that is not enough, take 
my horse and sell him." They said, "Mr. Wells, 
you are excited." He said, "I would rather be 
excited than for some of my children to be lost." 
We had all better be excited than for loved ones 
about us to be lost. 

But how often we must pass through the fire, 
like the Hebrew children, to see and know more 
of God. As Spurgeon said, "Our afflictions are 
like weights, and have a tendency to bow us to 
the dust, but there is a way of arranging 
weights, by means of w r heels and pulleys, so that 



S6 All Good to the Christian 

they will even lift us up. Grace, by its matchless 
art has often turned the heaviest of our trials 
into occasions for heavenly joy. We glory in 
tribulations also." We gather honey out of the 
rock and oil out of the flinty rock. As God 
takes those dear to us in our earthly homes up 
to our Father's home in glory, it should make us 
think less of earth and more of heaven. Then 
we should think of those gone from our earthly 
home as bright stars shining in the far off world 
to beckon us towards heaven. When we climb 
the bright hills of the heavenly world and look 
back at old earth, with its strangely mingled 
joys and sorrows, we will then praise God for 
all His dealings with us and know more of His 
wisdom and goodness. 



Cbrist Is IRtsen. 



"He is risen." Matthew xxviii, 6. 

These words are written upon the tomb of 
our departed friends in letters of living light. 
These three words make the rainbow that will 
hang over the grave of our loved ones until the 
resurrection morn. What good news and glad 
tidings the angels have brought from heaven to 
earth. At the nativity of Christ the angels were 
seen flying through the eastern sky, singing, 
"Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, 
good will toward men, today is born, in the city 
of David, the Saviour which is Christ the Lord." 
And here they come again, bringing three of the 
sweetest words that were ever borne by angels 
to this dark world of ours. The words which 
make hundreds of heart-strings vibrate with 
their sweetest melody. Oh! how dark the grave 
would be to us when we leave our friends and 
relatives there, if there were no resurrection 
from the dead. 

Without the Bible we could never have real- 
ized the beauty of these three words which will 
shine so brightly through all time and eternity. 



88 Christ Is Risen 

Nature, philosophy, science and art are all silent 
on this great and important theme. Go ask the 
blooming meadows, verdant fields, the sparkling 
stream, purple mountain, roaring ocean, shining 
stars and the burning sun, where is the Saviour 
that was crucified on the cross, and you are 
answered only by the echo. From nature and 
science we must turn to the Bible, and there we 
find our doubts removed and life and immortal- 
ity brought to light. If we were to read the 
Bible from the first to the last page and find all 
through the book that the Son of God left heaven 
and was seen on earth by thousands, performing 
miracles, and at last was seen hanging on the 
cross, but nowhere could we find that He rose 
from the grave, how dark the future would be 
to us, when we tell our friends good-bye at 
death, no ray of light telling us that they were 
to live beyond the grave and that we could meet 
them again. From this we can imagine some- 
thing of the sadness of the disciples after Christ 
was left hanging on the cross. This was the 
darkest time to the world since the closing of 
the gates of Eden. 

The shepherd was now smitten and the flock 
scattered. The scriptures tell us that the disci- 
ples mourned and wept. If you had been in 



Christ Is Risen 



Jerusalem at the time of the death of Christ no 
doubt but you would have heard the disciples 
as they stood on the corner of some street, and 
talking in a low tone and saying this Man we 
loved and in whom we put our trust, yet for 
some unknown reason in the last hour of His 
suffering He failed and God has forsaken Him. 
And now our hopes of the future are all gone, 
and the world, to all human appearance, is like 
an orphan ; and thus they talk and weep until 
the sunlight begins to fade from the distant sum- 
mit of the mountain of Moab. 

In the twilight are seen the two Marys sitting 
there by the closed and silent grave, with bleed- 
ing and aching hearts. As the dark night falls 
over the guilty city, you can see the two Marys 
and the disciples going back toward Jerusalem 
as if loath to leave the place where their Lord 
lay. As they went they could see nothing before 
them but the dark night and the unopened grave. 
They must have felt as if their souls were in the 
very valley and shadow of death without the 
comforting rod and supporting staff of the shep- 
herd. What a dark night of unbelief was then 
hanging over their minds, as they did not under- 
stand His resurrection. 

But could they have seen and understood the 



90 Christ Is Risen 

light that was to soon come out of darkness, 
the life that was to come out of death and the 
joy that was to come out of that deep agony, 
their souls would have been singing like the bird 
at the rising sun. Bless God, that dark night 
did not last always. See the morning light 
gleaming along the eastern sky and the two 
Marys are going toward the tomb of the Saviour 
and saying, "Who shall roll us away the stone?" 
When they come near they see an angel. "His 
countenance was like lightning and his raiment 
white as snow. And for fear of him the keepers 
did shake, and became as dead men. And the 
angel answered and said unto the women, Fear 
not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was 
crucified. He is not here, for He is risen, as 
He said. Come, see the place where the Lord 
lay. And go quickly and tell His disciples that 
He is risen from the dead ; and, behold, He goeth 
before you into Galilee ; there shall ye see Him ; 
lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly 
from the sepulchre, with fear and great joy, and 
did run to bring His disciples word." Matthew 
xxviii. 

For almost two thousand years men and 
women have been running with the good news 
that Christ has risen from the tomb. What good 
news to a lost and ruined world. 



Christ Is Risen 91 

Before Christ rose we only had light on one 
side, but as He went through the old cavern 
He let light in from the heavenly side. And 
now we can walk through the valley of death 
with the light of heaven on us all the way. What 
light and glory burst upon the world the morn- 
ing the Saviour rose from the grave ! What 
mighty magic power there is in the resurrection ! 
Around it gathers all the light of the Old Tes- 
tament economy. It explains every symbol, it 
substantiates every shadow, it solves every mys- 
tery, it fulfils every prophecy of that dispen- 
sation which would have remained eternally 
unmeaning had it not been for the resurrection 
of our Lord. Nowhere is the Divine character 
so presented as in the resurrection of Christ, 
there the cloud veil is withdrawn,there the Divine 
portrait is uncovered and we learn and see Him 
as nowhere else. The past is not only illumi- 
nated by the resurrection, but the future also. 
It assures us of the ultimate reign of the 
Saviour. It tells us of the rewards that will spring 
out of His death and resurrection. With one 
arm it points to the Divine Council of the eter- 
nity past, with the other to the eternity to come. 
And yet, knowing that Christ has risen from the 
dead, would be no comfort to us if we could 



92 Christ Is Risen 

not find anywhere in the scriptures that we were 
to be raised from the dead, but we find in 
Romans : "For if we have been planted together 
in the likeness of His death we shall be also in 
the likeness of His resurrection. ,, "Now, if we 
be dead with Christ we believe that we shall 
also live with Him. Knowing that Christ being 
raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath 
no more dominion over Him." "Because I live 
ye shall live also." If it were not for a life 
beyond the grave how sad to think of dying 
and leaving our friends forever. That the old 
world upon which I have walked and the friends 
with whom I have talked, that I must leave them 
never to meet again, and that the world will go 
on just like it did while I was living. That the 
little stream upon whose bank I sat and played, 
when a child, and listened to it as it went sing- 
ing by toward its ocean home. That stream will 
murmur by in its channel just as sweetly when 
I am dead as it did when I sat on its bank. The 
sun will rise and set just as brightly as it did 
when I watched the last rays that lingered on 
the highest mountain peak. The stars will shine 
out on my lone grave at midnight as they have 
on the graves of the millions in the past. 

But thank God those of us who believe on 



Christ Is Risen 93 

Christ will outlive the stream, the mountain and 
the stars. When an angel will be seen descend- 
ing the heavens to the earth with his right foot 
upon the sea, and his left foot upon the earth 
and swear by the judge of the quick and the dead 
that time shall be no more. Then the old moun- 
tains will melt down, the sun will be blown out 
and the moon turn to blood. But when the old 
earth is gone and the sun stricken from his 
throne for millions of years, we will then be 
singing on in glory with Christ, saints and 
angels. This world will be but a morning dream 
compared with our life which shall stretch on 
into the great eternity. 

You have lost some of your friends, and you 
have gone and planted flowers upon their graves, 
you go and sit at eventide upon the green sward, 
bedewing the grass with your tears until the 
long shades of evening creep over the earth and 
the stars begin to peep out in the heavens, and 
there at the grave you linger and think, "Shall 
I ever see them again?" Yes there is a glori- 
ous waking time of the dead coming on, when 
the shadows of night and death shall forever 
flee away and we shall meet our loved ones never 
to part again. 



Sowino anfc IReaping* 



"And let us not be weary in well-doing; for 
in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." 
Galations vi, 9. 

"As we have therefore opportunity, let us do 
good unto all men, especially unto them who are 
of the household of faith/ ' Let us sow good 
seed and some day a rich harvest will ripen. 

Nearly half a century ago, before the time of 
railways, when people traveled in stage coaches, 
a coach used to run daily between Glasgow and 
Greenoch in Scotland. One afternoon, as this 
coach was going by a place called Bishop ton, a 
lady in the coach saw a little boy walking bare- 
footed along the road. He seemed tired and 
suffering with his feet. She asked the driver to 
take him up and give him a seat and she would 
pay for it. When they arrived at the inn in 
Greenoch she inquired of the boy to know what 
had brought him there. He said he wished to "be 
a sailor and hoped some of the captains would 
take him as a cabin boy. The lady gave him 
half a crown and spoke some kind words to him 
wishing him success and charging him not to 



Sowing and Reaping 95 

learn to swear or drink. Twenty years went by. 
The coach was returning to Glasgow one after- 
noon on the same road. Among the passengers 
in the stage was a sea captain and when they 
came near Bishopton the very spot where the 
kind lady took up the little boy, the captain saw 
an old lady on the road walking slowly and look- 
ing very tired and weary. He asked the coach- 
man to take her in the coach as there was an 
empty seat and he would pay the fare. Soon 
after that they stopped to change horses all the 
passengers got out except the sea captain and 
the old lady. The lady thanked the captain for 
his kindness toward her as she was not able to 
pay for the seat. He said he always felt bound 
to help weary travelers whenever he could, be- 
cause w r hen he was a boy, twenty years ago, 
near this very place a kind-hearted lady ordered 
the coachman to take him up and paid for his 
seat. "Ah!" said the lady, "I remember that 
day very well. I am the lady, sir, but my lot 
in life has changed. Then I was well off, but 
now I am left poor through the bad conduct of 
my intemperate son." "Oh! I am so glad to 
meet you again, my good friend," said the cap- 
tain, shaking her warmly by the hand. "I have 
been very successful in business and am going 



96 Sowing and Reaping 

home to live on my fortune, and from this day 
I shall pay you one hundred dollars a year as 
long as you live." See how this lady was re- 
warded in her old days for her kind acts toward 
others in her youth. 

Be not weary in well-doing and many years 
afterward comes the harvest. I well remember 
the first time in my life that I confessed Christ 
before the public was at a camp-meeting in 
Wythe County, Virginia, when I was about six- 
teen years of age. It was on the Lord's day, 
and I sat at the back of the shed, when I heard 
many about the front and around the altar tell- 
ing what the Lord had done for them, I sat and 
listened till I could wait no longer. As I arose 
and told the audience how, by the death of my 
little sister, I had been brought to trust Christ. 
As I told of my conversion I heard groans and 
saw the tears running down the cheeks of many. 
Twenty-five years after that, as I was preaching 
under my tent at Wytheville, Virginia, when an 
old man came up to the stage and said, "Brother 
Smith, do you know me?" I said, "I do not." 
He then said, "I was converted twenty-five 
years ago at the camp-ground that Sunday 
afternoon while you were telling how you were 
saved." A few days after that I was preaching 



Sowing and Reapin gX ¥* F* r 97 

at Saltville, Virginia, when another man came 
forward and told me that he was converted at 
the same time. Well, I thought, if that is the 
way the Lord saved men from the first time I 
confessed Him in the public, I will go on telling 
what He did for me on the cross till my last 
sun shall set and I awake in glory. 

May the Lord help us to tell, every oppor- 
tunity we have, what Christ has done for us, 
that it may bring others to Him. When I was 
in college at Salem, Virginia, in 1882, I took 
fever when many died at Roanoke and Salem. 
Dr. Wiley thought my case hopeless. An old 
colored man waited on me in the daytime and 
an Indian at night. One Sunday, when a little 
cold, the colored man, Uncle Jack, as we called 
him, went out and began cutting wood, I tapped 
against the window pane with my fingers, Uncle 
Jack came in and asked, "What do you want, 
Mr. Smith ?" I said, "I would rather be cold 
than to hear the ring of an ax on Sunday." 
Uncle Jack said, "You are a strange kind of a 
man/' and went out. So I got well and went 
home. Sixteen years after that I stopped over 
to wait for a train at Salem going west, I 
thought I would go up to the college and look 
over the grounds and see what changes in six- 



98 Sowing and Reaping 

teen years. After looking through the campus 
a while, I then went into the room in the college 
where I had been expected to die, there I prayed 
and thanked the Lord for the strength of body 
and mind which He had given me for sixteen 
years, through which time I had preached almost 
all over the continent, and had seen thousands 
yield to the blessed Christ. As I came out off 
the campus into the street, some old colored 
man came up to me and said, "Is this Mr. 
Smith?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Do you 
know me?" I said, "No." Then he told me 
that he was Uncle Jack, and how my tapping 
against the window-pane that Sunday had 
troubled him for years. Said he would wake up 
in the dead hours of the night and hear me tap 
against the window and say, "Do not cut any 
wood on Sunday." Till one night he awoke and 
said to himself, "Will this trouble me till my 
dying day?" And there and then, he told me, 
in that hour of the lone night, he gave all to 
Christ and said, "If I am a colored man I will 
meet you, Brother Smith, in heaven." 

Sow ye beside all waters; 

Where the dew of heaven may fall, 
Ye shall reap if ye be not weary, 

For the spirit breathes over all. 



Sowing and Reaping 99 

Sow, though the thorns may wound thee. 

One wore the thorns for thee ; 
And though the cold world scorn thee, 

Patient and hopeful be. 

Sow ye beside all waters, 

With a blessing and a prayer, 
Name Him whose hand upholds us, 

And sow thou everywhere. 

When we think what Christ has done for us 
on the cross we ought to work faithfully till 
the last sun has gone down on us. We ought 
to be like Whitefield, preaching the last night he 
was on the earth. As Rev. Parsons, in whose 
house at Newbury Port he died, relates the fol- 
lowing touching scene which he witnessed : 
"While at supper, the pavement in front of the 
house, and even the hall were crowded with peo- 
ple impatient to hear a few words from his elo- 
quent lips, but he was exhausted, and, rising 
from the table, said to one of the clergymen 
who were with him, 'Brother, you must speak to 
these dear people, I can not say a word/ Taking 
a candle, he hastened toward his bedroom, but 
before reaching it he was arrested by the sug- 
gestion of his own generous heart, that he ought 
not thus to desert the anxious crowd hungering 
for the bread of life from his hands. He paused 

LOFC. 



Sowing and Reaping 



on the stairs to address them. He had preached 
his last sermon and this was to be his last exhor- 
tation. He lingered on the stairway, while the 
crowd gazed up at him with tearful eyes. His 
voice, never, perhaps, surpassed in its music and 
pathos, flowed on until the candle which he held 
in his hand burned away and went out in its 
socket. After making this last talk he went to 
his room and slept quietly till about two in the 
morning, when he awoke his traveling attend- 
ant and told him that his asthma was coming on 
again. His companion recommended him not 
to preach so often as he had done. 'I would 
rather wear out than rust out/ was his reply. 
He had expressed, not long before at Princeton, 
a wish to die suddenly rather than by a linger- 
ing illness. He now realized the wish. He sat 
up for some time in his bed praying that God 
would bless his preaching, his Bethesda School, 
the Tabernacle congregation, and all his connec- 
tions on the other side of the water. He at- 
tempted to sleep again but could not, and soon 
after, hastening to the open window, panting for 
breath, he exclaimed, 'I am dying !' A physician 
was summoned, but could give no relief. At 
six in the morning of September 30, 1770, as 
the Sabbath sun was beginning to lighten the 
eastern sky, his soul departed." 



Sowing and Reaping 



This is the way to make the last day count 
this side of eternity. It is delightful to do work 
by which we will be rewarded in the sweet eter- 
nity when this old world is gone. For more 
than twenty years I have averaged over a sermon 
a day, sowing the precious seed of God's truth 
over some forty states. During this time, I have 
preached in churches, on trains, in steamers, on 
the streets, in the woods, in banks, in stores, and 
in barrooms, and almost everywhere that men 
live. In this time I have seen men trust Christ 
from the poorest hard-working men up to the 
rich banker. I went to Princeton, West Virginia, 
I think in 1890, to hold a revival service. As the 
meeting had been going on a few days, and I 
was going from one place to another holding 
prayer, I went into Judge Johnson's office and 
had prayer, as I went out Mr. Straley, a banker, 
said, "That is the first preacher that ever prayed 
in a law office in Princeton, so I will go and hear 
him preach." He did come to the meetings, and 
was saved and became a great blessing to others 
the rest of his life. He gave five or six thousand 
dollars to the Orphans' Home at Salem, Vir- 
ginia, and hundreds to poor preachers and other 
causes, and has now gone home to glory to re- 
ceive his reward. May God bless the readers 



102 Sowing and Reaping 

of these sermons that they may be faithful in 
sowing good seed in every path of life; that 
when life, with its toils and cares are over, they 
may mount up from this sin-cursed earth, pass- 
ing away by the fading stars, through the gates 
of the Celestial City, greeted by the harps and 
hosts of heaven as they pass along the golden 
streets and over the bright plains of eternal 
glory, saying, "The harvest is past, the summer 
is ended, and we are at home with Jesus and 
the saints to wear a white robe and a bright 
crown, where no more sorrow, death, nor sad 
farewells will ever come." 




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1bell. 



"The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all 
the nations that forget God." Psalm ix, 17. 

There must be a hell as well as a heaven, 
because the good and bad of earth must be sep- 
arated or we could have no heaven. If the bar- 
keeper should go to heaven in the state of mind 
that he has here he would wish to sell whiskey 
as soon as he got there. And the gambler would 
start a gambling den as soon as "he would enter 
heaven. So the man who loves money more 
than he loves Christ would begin to dig up the 
gold-paved streets to have it coined into money, 
and some other man in heaven who had a still 
greater love for money than the one digging up 
the gold would kill the other man for his gold 
before he got to the mint to have it coined. Now, 
this kind of men would turn a heaven into a hell. 
Then all that hate Christ and hate all that is 
good and pure must be shut out of heaven to 
make that a good place. So the wicked and all 
the nations that forget God must be cast into 
hell, the same as we put wicked murderers and 
thieves in prison here to keep the better class of 
people from being in danger all the time. 



104 Hell 

There are some ministers who never mention 
anything about hell, so you would never know 
from their preaching there was any such a place. 
I once read of a minister who said to his congre- 
gation, "If you do not love the Lord Jesus Christ 
you will be sent to that place which it is not 
polite to mention/' This kind of preachers would 
get men, if they could, to go down to hell and 
put dynamite under the place and blow it into 
atoms, or send in a petition to God, asking Him 
to shut the old place up, that this enlightened 
age had no use for such a place as hell. These 
ministers who are too nice to say hell in the 
pulpit, if they were in heaven, as they are down 
here, heaven w r ould not be good enough for 
them, and they would be telling God how to 
make an improvement on things in that world. 
This class of men make me think of the old 
Irishman who wanted to show his friend that 
he could beat God in making a world. As he 
and his friend were lying in the shade of a large 
oak tree one hot summer day, near by a fine, 
flourishing pumpkin-vine was trailing on the 
ground. He looked at the nice, large pumpkins 
growing on the vine and then said to his friend, 
"What a great mistake it was to put those mis- 
erable little acorns upon a fine tree like this and 



Hell 105 

leave these noble-looking pumpkins down here 
in the dirt and dust. If I had the making* of 
these things I would have arranged them differ- 
ent, I would have put the acorns down on the 
ground and the fine pumpkins up on the tree/' 
Just about the time he said this, a breeze of 
wind swept through the tree and shook off sev- 
eral acorns, one of these hit the wise man on 
the head. "Ah!" said he, putting his hand to 
his head, "thank God it was not a pumpkin.'' 
If the pumpkin had been as large as I have seen 
them in California, and one should fall on a 
man's head, he would think he was thunder- 
struck if he had mind enough to think anything. 
Now, all men who want to change the Bible and 
God's way of doing things will show their wis- 
dom like the Irishman. 

People often ask me what kind of a place is 
hell. Now, let the Bible answer and see what 
it says about the place: "But the fearful and 
unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, 
and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, 
and all liars, shall have their part in the lake 
which burnetii with fire and brimstone; which 
is the second death." Revelation xxi, 8. "And 
if thy hand offend thee, cut it off; it is 
better for thee to enter into life maimed, than, 



106 Hell 

having two hands, to go into hell, into the fire 
that never shall be quenched." Mark ix, 43. 
"But the children of the Kingdom shall be cast 
out into outer darkness ; there shall be weeping 
and gnashing of teeth/' Matthew viii, 12. 
"Because Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, 
neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see 
corruption." Acts ii, 2.7. 

The Bible is a common-sense book and puts 
things to men in a common-sense way. Hell 
is not a real place of fire, nor a place of outer 
darkness, nor where the worm dieth not, nor 
as a grave, it could not be all these things and 
all these kinds of places. God has put hell in 
the Bible, to the human mind illustrated by 
external objects, so the mind can get some idea 
of the awful suffering of a soul driven away 
from God and all that is good forever. Take 
the thought of outer darkness : suppose you 
should go from your home some night to church 
as the audience is dismissed you return, as you 
think, to your home, but when you get to the 
place where your home was, no home there, and 
you can find no one anywhere, what dreadful 
feelings would come over you. Now think you 
would continue for hours, hunting and crying 
out at the top of your voice and could find no 



Hell 



107 



one of your family nor any one else, could not 
even hear the crow of a chicken or the bark of 
a dog, and after a while you strike a match and 
find the time since you left the church has been 
so long that the sun ought to be two or three 
hours high. Oh ! what agony of mind. "Will 
I never find any one, and the sun never rise, 
and am I to go walking and stumbling and fall- 
ing into rivers and ditches over the earth in this 
awful darkness forever alone ?" Think of some 
one screaming and hunting for some person in 
such darkness as this a thousand years and still 
find no one, and to go on still alone in such 
darkness as this forever! Do you want any 
worse hell than one of that kind? I should 
never want to go to a hell of outer darkness. 
Then the Bible tells us of a hell as a lake of 
fire. I looked at the lakes of hot and boiling 
water among the geysers in Yellowstone Park, 
some that looked red like lakes of boiling fire, 
and I thought how awful to be cast into a lake 
like that, to remain forever. Then I have looked 
into these coke ovens in Virginia and West Vir- 
ginia, where so much coal is coked, and thought 
to myself, "Where is the mother that could stand 
on the brink of one of these ovens and see her 
child groan and scream, amid the lurid flames, 



108 Hell 

for help, and she could not rescue him from 
the fire?" No mother with a human heart 
could look at a child in a place like that for a 
day, or a week, and not lose their mind at see- 
ing the dreadful suffering of their child and 
could not get them out of the fire. Then, think 
of being in a lake of fire forever. 

The Bible tells us again that the fire in this 
lake is not quenched and that the smoke ascends 
forever. Think of some wife, whose husband 
had died, and after death, cast into a boiling 
lake from which she could see the smoke rising 
all the time as she would look out of her win- 
dow in the morning, see the smoke from the 
lake also in the evening, as the sun went down, 
so always morning and evening she could see 
the smoke and say, "My poor husband is still 
in the fire." When we were in the Yosemite 
Valley, no matter where we were, or where we 
went over the high mountains, or in the valley, 
we could see the spray overtop the falls that 
hung high in the heavens like a white cloud, 
telling where the falls were, also we could hear 
the dead, heavy roar of the falls all day and any 
hour you should wake in the lone night. When 
I looked at that white spray, which always hangs 
over the falls, and then hear the awful roar that 



Hell 



109 



has been going on night and day for hundreds 
of years, never ceasing, it made me think of the 
lake of fire in the Bible, where the smoke as- 
cends forever and ever. Then again, the Bible 
tells us of a hell like a never-dying worm that 
eats and gnaws at our life always. How could 
the President of the United States ever have a 
happy moment if he had a great serpent eating 
at his heart night and day, as he sat at the table 
with his family, how could he eat as he felt the 
dreadful gnawing of the serpent at his heart? 
What would all the money in the world be to 
any one with a serpent eating his life away? 
No rest nowhere, walking the streets by day, 
sitting with his family, or at night, hunting for 
rest. It would be a hell everywhere he went. 
The last and most awful description of hell in 
the Bible is that of hell being like the grave. 
Sometimes, after people bury their relatives, 
they get troubled and think they were not dead 
when buried, and go and take them up and find 
that they did come to life after they were cov- 
ered up in the grave. Oh! just to think of 
any one coming to life in their coffin, and could 
not die but just remain alive in the grave and 
think of their relatives upon the earth just a few 
feet above them, but they could get no news 



no Hell 

to them, no 'phone from that place to the 
world just above. Just to think of living in the 
grave alone forever, what more awful hell than 
that do you want? These descriptions are in 
the Bible to give the sinner some idea of the 
suffering of the soul driven away from God and 
all that is good. Some may think, "What will 
the lost do in hell ?" I think they will try to do 
just what they did here. The drunkard would 
die loving his dram, and in hell he would want 
to drink, burning with thirst for his whiskey, 
and could never get another dram. The man 
who went to hell for the love of money, will 
wish to make money, but no way to make any 
and his love for money increase and make it 
worse with him as he goes on groaning with 
the damned in hell forever. So the sins they 
loved in this world, and would not give them 
up for Christ and heaven, will eat and gnaw 
their souls in the other world. When the lost 
in hell think how they treated Christ and the 
many sins they committed in this life, it will 
make the pangs of hell dreadful. The rich 
man that died "and in hell he lifted up his eyes, 
being in torments and seeth Abraham afar off, 
and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and 
said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me and 



Hell in 

send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his fin- 
ger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tor- 
mented in this flame.' But Abraham said, 'Son, 
remember that thou, in thy lifetime, receivedst 
thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things, 
but now he is comforted and thou art tormented. 
And beside all this, between us and you there is 
a great gulf fixed, so that they which would 
pass from hence to you can not, neither can they 
pass to us, that would come from thence." 
Thousands of rich men, who have died since, 
are now in hell, thinking how they lived in this 
life, and how they are now tormented. They 
would like to have some poor man that they 
treated as a dog in this life to come down there 
that they might get a little water from his fin- 
gers to cool their tongues. But their good time 
is over and, Oh! how memory will haunt them 
in hell, as they think of their wicked deeds done 
in this life. The wicked man who commits 
some great crime here, such as murder, gets the 
black deed off his mind by coming in contact 
with people and other objects in this life, and 
yet, sometimes the man he killed comes up in 
memory, at the dead hour of night, until the 
living man gets such a fright from the ghost 
that haunts him until he kills himself to get rid 
of the sight that follows him day and night. 



ii2 Hell 

If memory troubles men in this life that way, 
what will it be in eternity, where nothing but 
their foul and dreadful sins shall rush on them 
forever? I will never forget the first night I 
spent on the seacoast, way in the lone, dead 
hour of the night, while the city had sunk in 
stillness to rest, I could hear the wild scream 
of the steam-boat, and the waves of the ocean 
lashing against the shore as if to grind the 
rocks into sand. The noise of the city, during 
the day kept me from hearing the waves of the 
ocean lash the shore. So in this life the lost 
man comes in contact with things here on the 
earth which make him forget his sins against 
God and man. But Oh! how they will rush 
on him in eternity, and he can not get away 
from them. The bar-keeper will then see the 
drunkard reel and stagger as he never saw him 
before, and hear the cry of poor orphan children, 
with such a dreadful scream as he never heard 
in this life. How all the wicked deeds of the 
lost will come in on them in hell, like coals of 
living fire, scorching and burning their con- 
science forever. Sinner, what will you think 
when the last day shall come and you shall hear 
Christ say, "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting 
fire, I know you not," and then an angel drag 



Hell 113 

you to the brink of the pit and you look over 
for a moment, before being hurled into the 
abyss, and there see and hear the screams and 
groans of the millions of the lost as they gnash 
their teeth and say, "The harvest is past, the 
summer is ended, and we are lost in this bot- 
tomless pit forever"? Reader, think, in that 
world there will be no church bells ringing on 
the Lord's day, calling sinners to hear the gos- 
pel and believe on the Christ fof eternal life. 
No mother there to pray for you and tell you 
of the sweet heaven to come. 

Do not go to this world of which I have been 
writing, there is a world where there is no sin, 
where Jesus has gone and thousands of saints 
made white and pure by the blood of the Lamb. 
Oh! sinner, flee to Christ now and be saved, 
that your soul may escape the damnation of hell. 



Ibeaven. 



"He hath prepared for them a city." He- 
brews xi, 16. 

There was a Man who lived in Palestine for 
more than thirty years, who never did a wrong 
nor committed a single sin. More than this, 
He had amazed the eyes of the critical world 
with a pure holiness. He had kept his garments 
unspotted from the sins of the wicked world. 
His life had been such a picture of goodness 
as they had never dreamed of before. His life 
had always shone with goodness as the sun with 
light. When this Man went to leave this world 
where He had been treated so shamefully as to 
be nailed to the cross between two thieves, those 
who had fallen in love with Him and left their 
nets and all to follow Him, wanted to go with 
Him when He left this world, so He comforted 
them with these words : "Let not your heart be 
troubled ; ye believe in God, believe also in Me. 
In My Father's house are many mansions ; if it 
were not so, I would have told you. I go to 
prepare a place for you. And if I go and pre- 
pare a place for you, I will come again, and re- 



Heaven 115 

ceive you unto myself; that where I am, there 
ye may be also." John xiv. After He spoke 
these comforting words, "He then led them out 
as far as Bethany and He lifted up His hands 
and blessed them. And it came to pass, while 
He blessed them, He was parted from them, 
and carried up into heaven." Luke xxiv, 50- 
51. We see again, in Acts, where He left 
them: "And when He had spoken these things, 
while they beheld He was taken up ; and a 
cloud received Him out of their sight. And 
while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as 
He went up, behold two men stood by them in 
white apparel; Which also said, 'Ye men of 
Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? 
This same Jesus, which is taken up from you 
into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye 
have seen Him go- into heaven." 

Jesus said to them before He left, in His 
Father's house were many mansions. I am glad 
that Jesus said many mansions, so this heavenly 
city is no small place. In the last chapter of the 
Bible it is described there as being fifteen hun- 
dred miles in length, fifteen hundred in breadth, 
and fifteen hundred in height. The children of 
God have been going into this city for six thou- 
sand years. And still they are invited to come 



n6 Heaven 

from all over the earth, rich and poor, who will 
come by the way of the cross. Some people say, 
"How do we know there is a heaven, no one ever 
came from there ?" How do we know there is 
such a place as London, because people have 
gone over there and come back and told us of 
that city? So the best people that have ever 
lived on earth have gone up to heaven and come 
back again to this earth and talked with the peo- 
ple down here. I have heard ministers say, 
when some Christian man died, that he had gone 
whence no one had ever returned. That minis- 
ter made a big mistake. Enoch walked with 
God while here on earth, but one day he left this 
world and went up to heaven to walk with God 
and the saints there, and as far as I know the 
Bible he has never been seen back here since he 
left. Years after Enoch went up to heaven, 
then Elijah went by a chariot of fire and some- 
thing like fifteen hundred years go by and we 
see Elijah back here again on the earth talking 
with his friends. See in Mark the ninth chap- 
ter, "And after six days, Jesus taketh with Him 
Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them 
up into an high mountain apart by themselves; 
and He was transfigured before them. And His 
raiment became shining, exceeding white as 



Heaven 117 

snow ; so as no fuller on earth can white them. 
And there appeared unto them Elias, with 
Moses ; and they were talking with Jesus." We 
ought to have no fears about going over to 
heaven after Moses and Elijah go over there and 
stay over a thousand years and then come back 
here and talk to their friends as they did with 
Peter, James, John, and the blessed Lord on the 
Mount of Transfiguration. Again, Abraham 
talked out of heaven so that the rich man heard 
him in hell, John and Stephen saw into the 
heavenly world before they left this earth, and 
I think thousands more of God's saints have 
seen heaven when on their dying beds. What a 
comfort this should be to the children of God to 
know that Jesus came down from heaven and 
that Elijah and Moses came back and Abraham 
had been heard from since he went there, and 
many, when leaving the world, tell their friends 
they can see heaven on the other side. 

With all these blessed truths we should say 
with David, "Yea, though I walk through the 
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no 
evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy 
staff they comfort me." It is not only our priv- 
ilege here on the earth to know there is a heaven, 
but to know that our name is written there. 



n8 Heaven 

Once the disciples had been out preaching 
and met with great success. They had cast out 
devils and performed miracles and came to Jesus 
greatly rejoicing. But Jesus said, "Rejoice not 
that the spirits are subject unto you, but rather 
rejoice because your names are written in 
heaven/ 1 It is a blessed thought to know while 
here in this world that we can look far across 
the hills and mountains of this dark, sin-cursed 
earth and know our names are written in the 
beautiful heaven above. 

Heaven is also the richest home or city that 
has ever been built. In the last of the Bible we 
find there this place is built only of gold, pearls 
and precious stones. The poor houses we build 
in this world are built of brick, mortar, wood, 
stone, iron, glass, and other things. But how 
different with our heavenly home. The founda- 
tion is built of precious stones, the gates of 
pearl, the streets of the city made of pure gold. 
Think of a city whose streets are made of pure 
gold. If a city on this earth had streets made 
of gold, the policemen and thieves would be 
fighting all night over the streets to see which 
would get the gold. 

When I was in New York more than twenty 
years ago, one of the daily papers said there was 



Heaven ng 

a gold brick in the street in front of Vanderbilt's 
door. I said if that were true some policeman 
would steal it, or kill some one that was trying 
to get away with it, the first night after the 
brick was put there. How poor the most splen- 
did cities or houses become when compared with 
this heavenly home. It is said that Louis the 
Fourteenth, the King of France, built a palace 
at Versailles which cost two hundred million 
dollars, and yet, what is that compared to the 
mansion Jesus has prepared for the saints? 
What a beautiful home God has made for His 
people ! 

There are many beautiful things in this 
world, so beautiful we can not describe, and yet 
this old world has been all marred and scarred 
with sin. If you have been to Niagara Falls, 
you stood and gazed with delight, but when you 
come away, and some one should ask you to de- 
scribe the falls or tell them what it was like, 
you could not do it. You might tell them how 
high and wide, but how Niagara looks and how 
you felt while looking at it, you could never tell. 
When I looked at the falls the first time, such a 
feeling of awe came over me that I felt I would 
never try to give any description of the place. I 
have stood in California and gazed at the snow- 



I20 Heaven ^^ 

capped mountains as I could see them stretching 
along the sky for a hundred miles or more, shin- 
ing like great masses of silver in the heavens. 
Then I have seen other mountains along the 
Pacific coast, clothed with dark green woods and 
streams of water gushing down their sides, like 
threads of silver and torrents dashing themselves 
into foam and spray. Then I have thought, "If 
this world is so beautiful in places, what will 
heaven be, where there is no sin?" 

It is said that Newton, when after years of 
patient toil, as he was just about to step on the 
summit of that mountain which no human foot 
had climbed before, and to catch a glimpse of 
the unseen glory of that ocean of truth which 
he alone had reached, felt the depth of his joy 
so intense that he was overcome and wept. How 
will it be with us when we climb the heavenly 
heights and find out those new discoveries of 
truth and beauty of which we never dreamed in 
this state of imperfect knowledge? There is 
something to mar the beauty* of all the brightest 
things in this world. The brightest sky will 
have a cloud upon its surface. The sun itself 
has dark spots upon its face. The most beauti- 
ful and lovely home on this earth, there death 
will cast its dark shadow and take away -its vie- 



Heaven 121 

tim. But there will be nothing to mar the beauty 
of our home in heaven. No storms will ever 
sweep across the bright sky there, no night will 
ever come on with its loneliness. It will always 
be one eternal noon, the sun will never go down. 
Everything will be beautiful in heaven. 

"Beautiful Zion built above! 

Beautiful city that I love ! 

Beautiful gates of pearly white! 

Beautiful temple, God its light. 
"Beautiful trees forever there! 

Beautiful fruits they always bear ! 

Beautiful rivers gliding by! 

Beautiful fountains never dry! 

"Beautiful light without the sun! 

Beautiful days revolving on! 

Beautiful worlds on worlds untold! 

Beautiful streets of shining gold! 
"Beautiful heaven where all is light! 

Beautiful angels clothed in white! 

Beautiful songs that never tire! 

Beautiful harps through all the choir! 
"Beautiful crown on every brow! 

Beautiful palms the conquerors show! 

Beautiful robes the ransomed wear! 

Beautiful all who enter there! 

"Beautiful throne for God the Lamb! 
Beautiful seat at God's right hand ! 
Beautiful rest, all wandering cease! 
Beautiful home of perfect peace! " 



122 Heaven 

In this beautiful home we shall have good 
company. We are taught in the Bible that they 
shall come from the east and west and shall sit 
down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in 
the kingdom of heaven. Some people think 
that in heaven we shall know no one by name. 
But this Scripture declares here that we shall 
sit with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. I once 
read of a good woman who asked her husband 
when she was dying, "My dear, do' you think 
we will know each other when we meet in 
heaven?" "Why, I have always known you 
here and do you think we will have less knowl- 
edge in heaven than here on earth?" I certainly 
think we will know more in heaven than in this 
world. I have some dear ones up there and it 
is a very sweet thought to me that when I am 
done with this world and have crossed the river 
of death into glory, that there will come sister 
and brother to clasp me by the hand and wel- 
come me into our Father's home. I love to 
think of my dear relatives in heaven. I often 
think of them in the lone hours of the night, and 
during the day on some train as it goes sweep- 
ing over sparkling streams, through verdant 
hills and mountains, also as I sit on some old 
steamer, watching it plow its way through the 



Heaven 123 

waves toward the harbor, where friends are 
waiting to meet those on the ship. I have 
thought, "Yes, and when the Old Ship of Zion 
comes over into glory, loved ones will meet me 
at the harbor." 

I will tell here what caused me to take Christ 
as my Saviour and start for the heavenly home. 
I had a little sister, Josie, about three years old. 
Just a few days before she died, she came to 
my father and climbed into his lap and said, 
"Father, sing Sweet Home," as he sang she 
looked up with a smile on her face as if she 
knew that she was going there in a little time. 
So in a few days she died. This was the first 
death in our home out of ten children. O, how 
sad it made our home! Some of you know how 
you felt when the first loved one was borne 
away from your home to sleep among the dead. 
As we followed her little body to the grave and 
I heard the ropes being pulled from beneath her 
coffin it sounded to me like thunder from eter- 
nity, and as I heard the sobs and crying and 
saying goodbye, little sister, till we meet in 
heaven. I then thought I must die as well as 
sister, and I was not prepared for death. As 
we went back home and little Josie was not there 
and never would be again, I was so very sad. 



124 Heaven 

Toward night I went out into the fields to walk, 
and I watched the sun go down and saw the last 
rays of light seem to linger on the high moun- 
tain peaks as if loath to go, and as the dark 
night came on over our sad home, I sat out in 
the yard and watched the stars as they came out 
on the heavens and then I thought, "Little sis- 
ter is gone somewhere beyond those stars." As 
we went in the house to prayer that night, as 
father took the Bible and began to read, as he 
did this the tears ran down his cheeks and he 
laid the Bible up and knelt in prayer. While in 
prayer it came to my mind if I were to die I 
could not meet sister in heaven for I was not 
saved. Then I said to myself, "Yes, I will meet 
her in heaven, for I will now give my life to 
Christ." That moment I arose and told father 
and mother I was saved. My next older brother 
and two sisters at the same time trusted the 
Lord and said they were going with me to 
heaven. Since that time my dear brother has 
gone over to live with sister in that good world. 

"When in my glorified vision, 
The walls of that city I see, 
Dear brother and sister will be at the gate 
Waiting and watching for me. 



Heaven 1 2,5 

"Oh! joyfully sweet will the meeting be, 
When over the river, 
The peaceful river; 

The angel of death shall carry me." 

Thank God, by the eye of faith I can see far 
away in the distance beyond the blue sky, high 
on the summit of the everlasting hills, a city, 
the New Jerusalem, all of gold, bathed in light 
and quivering with glory, its walls of jasper, its 
foundation of precious stones, its angel-guarded 
gates of pearl. This city has no need of the sun 
nor moon, "For the glory of the Lord doth 
lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." 

Dear friends, we have many loved ones who 
have already crossed the river and are now in 
heaven. Oh! let us go and spend eternity with 
them in this beautiful city. 



APR 19 1907 



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